In Britain in the early 18th century private social clubs were all the rage. These societies grew out of the emerging coffeehouse culture and soon became an integral part of the social life of the British upper crust. The most notorious of all these groups was the so-called Hell-Fire Club. In 1721 a near panic was fueled by the English press, who reported that this club hosted orgies, encouraged blasphemy, and held rude pantomimes of sacred religious rituals. Even King George I himself became concerned that these clubs were corrupting British society. But how much of this was real and how much was invented by the imaginative British press? Tune-in and find out how the Farting Club, Giant Drunkasadog , and someone called Lady Polygamy all play a role in the story.

Works Cited

Ashe, Geoffrey. The Secret History of the Hell-Fire Clubs: From Rabelais and John Dee to Anton LaVey and Timothy Leary. Bear & Company, New York, 2019.

Blacket-Ord, Mark. Hell-Fire Duke: The Life of the Duke of Wharton. Kensal Press, London, 1982.

Lord, Evelyn. The Hell-Fire Clubs: Sex, Satanism, and Secret Societies. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2008.

Lynch, Jack. Deception and Detection in Eighteenth Century Britain. Ashgate, Burlington, 2008. 

Rabelais, Francois. Gargantua and Patagruel. Penguin Classics, New York, 2006.