British Literary Salons of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries - (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters) by S Schmid (Hardcover)

About the Book

"British literary salons of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is a comprehensive study of the British salon between the 1780s and the 1840s. It traces the activities of three salonnieres, Mary Berry, Lady Holland, and the Countess of Blessington, maps out the central place these circles held in London, and explains to what extent they shaped intellectual debate and publishing ventures. Authors like Byron, Moore, Thackeray, and Baillie emerge as regular guests. Using a large number of sources--diaries, letters, silver-fork novels, satires, travel writing, Keepsakes, and imaginary conversations--this study establishes sociable networks of days gone by"--

Book Synopsis

British salons, with guests such as Byron, Moore, and Thackeray, were veritable hothouses of political and cultural agitation. Using a number of sources - diaries, letters, silver-fork novels, satires, travel writing, Keepsakes, and imaginary conversations - Schmid paints a vivid picture of the British salon between the 1780s and the 1840s.

Review Quotes

"Schmid's book offers itself as a substantial contribution to this ever-expanding area of research. ... Besides providing cultural-historical contextualization, Schmid's introduction illustrates several terminological and theoretical points such as the notions of the 'non-place', 'social sphere' and performativity. ... the book presents a clear structure based on the arguments and theoretical premisses laid out in the introduction." (Diego Saglia, The BARS Review, Vol. 47, Spring, 2016)

"Susanne Schmid displays a very different form of community in her scholarly British Literary Salons of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, which constitutes a piece of highly impressive archival research. ... This is an impressive body of research, which opens a new sphere within Romantic metropolitan and cosmopolitan culture." (The Year's Work in English Studies, Vol. 94, 2015)

"Schmid's highly readable work will be of interest to scholars of cultural history, literature, andgender studies alike. It brings together an impressive range of ideas, based on close analyses of rich seams of archival material, as well as hitherto overlooked non-canonical literature, to present a vibrant account of how British women actively harnessed the potential of the salon as a social institution to engage in the political, intellectual, and cultural life of their day." - International Journal of English Studies

"Susanne Schmid's study . . . is part of a larger and continuing project of reviving the memory of influential women during a period when female participation in public life was severely constrained." - Times Literary Supplement

"Susanne Schmid provides excellent accounts of the groups that formed around Mary Berry, Lady Holland, and the Countess of Blessington, reading the social texts of the salons along with the works produced from within them." - Studies in English Literature

"Schmid's highly readable work will be of interest to scholars of criminal history, literature and gender studies alike. It brings together an impressive range of ideas, based on close analyses of rich seams of archival material, as well as hitherto overlooked non-canonical literature, to present a vibrant account of how British women actively harnessed the potential of the salon as a social institution to engage in the political, intellectual and cultural life of their day." - Anglistik

About the Author

Susanne Schmid teaches at Mainz University, Germany. She has published several books, among the Helene Richter-prize winning Shelley's German Afterlives (2007), as well as articles on Romanticism, film studies, and cultural studies.