Lady Fanshawe’s Spanish Imaginary

Abstract

This article examines Lady Ann Fanshawe’s cultural experiences and interactions during her residence in Spain, where she lived with her husband. It focuses on her adaptation to local customs and her insertion of Spanish recipes in her recipe book, Wellcome MS 7113, a collection that highlights her role in preserving both family heritage and cross-cultural knowledge. Her Memoirs, written a decade after her husband’s death, further enrich this analysis by offering insights into her extensive travels, cultural observations, and encounters with Spanish traditions, cuisine, and the high classes in seventeenth-century Spain. Together, these writings document not only the hardships of exile, diplomatic challenges, and personal losses, but also the creatively transformative impact of her Spanish experience on her manuscript production.