Daisy Hay: Glitter and Dazzle (opens in new tab)

Dror Wahrman argues that ‘it is hard to overestimate – though easy to forget – the cultural significance of the masquerade.’ Devotees of Bridgerton might quibble with ‘easy to forget’: in the TV series the masquerade is a kind of shorthand for an imagined (long) 18th century, just as in Austen’s writing it’s a symbol for all that is ridiculous about the adult world beyond the parlour.