Donald McCormick – The Hellfire Club

Donald McCormick – The Hellfire Club (Pedigree, nd: originally Jarrold, 1958)

 

Blurb
When John Wilkes was prosecuted for the obscene libel of his Essay on Women in 1763, the repercussions of this case produced one of the biggest political scandals of all time.
A shocked public learned that its Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Cabinet Ministers had for years been masquerading in the semi-ruined Abbey of Medmenham on the banks of the Thames. Not only had they dressed up as “monks” and indulged in mysterious rites, but they had admitted to their strange society masked and hooded women, whom they were pleased to call “nuns”.
When the secret of Medmenham became known, this rakes’ club transferred its headquarters to caves cut deep into the heart of West Wycombe Hill. Thus posterity has come to know the originally styled “Knights of Saint Francis of Wycombe” as the “Hell-Fire Club”.
This book makes a fascinating study of an age when rakemanship was a fine art. By judicious selection of much original material, including extracts from the club’s wine books, from faded letters and diaries of con­temporary figures, the author has succeeded in building up a factual, well-documented picture of these scandalous “monks” and their lively “nuns”.
“Read this fascinating book for a close-up of the rakes who once ruled Britain.”— Daily Mirror.
This is an original PEDIGREE BOOKS reprint, complete and unabridged, of a book hitherto available only in full cloth-bound form and priced at 18s. net.
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