Souvenirs of a Scandal: Commemorating the Margaret Nicholson Affair

This article explores a selection of visual and material commemorations of the Margaret Nicholson affair of 1786. Contextualizing the response to the affair within a broader story of spectacle and sensibility, it demonstrates that the cultural power and profusion of Nicholson, the would-be assassin of King George III, were driven by her contravention of expectations surrounding gender, class, and madness. Along with visual analysis of surviving representations of Nicholson, the article questions how the commercial materialization of the Nicholson scandal related to issues surrounding eighteenth-century experience, identity, and health.