The ‘most honest hearted, real good men’: Sir John Vanbrugh and the Kit-Cat Club

Ophelia Field, author of The Kit-Cat Club, and Vanbrugh biographer Rory Fraser discuss the Club’s under-appreciated centrality to Vanbrugh’s eclectic career and to British culture. This talk is one of a lecture series held monthly.

Vanbrugh joined publisher Jacob Tonson’s Kit-Cat Club soon after The Relapse debuted on the London stage in late 1696, remained a member until the Club dissolved in the 1720s, and retained a deep fondness for its fellowship and friendships until the end of his life. Several key steps in his surprising career depended upon the patronage of Kit-Cat aristocrats, and this was no accident.

Field, author of The Favourite: Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, published her group biography of the Kit-Cats in 2008 – the first in-depth modern study of the Club – and argued that its far-reaching role in British politics and culture had been previously overlooked. Fraser’s forthcoming biography of Vanbrugh will extend this argument, showing how important it was for Vanbr