British Literary Salons of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

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.

“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

"The reach of Schmid's analysis and her nuanced readings of these women, their circles, and their productions situate British salon culture at the heart of Romantic and early Victorian social, political, and literary life, making British Literary Salons an important contribution to the growing body of work on 18th and 19th century print culture. An important contribution to the growing body of work on 18th and 19th century print culture." - Kristin Samuelian, Associate Professor of English, George Mason University, USA



​"Schmid's comprehensive knowledge of the interrelated developments among the salonnières of the Continent gives strength and relevance to her study of British Literary Salons. As she points out, the term salon can be applied only loosely in accounting for the vast differences among the prominent intellectual circles. The differences were dictated by the artistic or philosophical inclinations of those who attended as well as by those who presided. The differences, as Schmid reveals, become even greater amidst the cultural changes taking place with the French Revolution, or when one moves from France, to Italy, to Germany, or to Britain. With her mastery of these pan-European developments, she brings penetrating insight into the characteristics of the British circles presided over by Mary Berry, Lady Holland, and the Countess of Blessington. Through the conjuring power of her prose, Schmid enables her readers to witness these personalities in action. Along with the more extensive sisterhood of bluestockings, the British salonnières were subjected to slander and derision. Schmid provides a rich foundation for reevaluating their extensive contribution." - Frederick Burwick, Research Professor, Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles, USA and author of Playing to the Crowd

"Schmid offers a boldly revisionary analysis of the formation of British literary culture in British Literary Salons of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. This provocative and highly original study provides a comprehensive overview of the literary salons that served as gathering places for the exchange of ideas among British writers, editors, reviewers, painters, scholars, and politicians. By elucidating the role of the salon as an emerging social institution that enabled women to become actively engaged in the production of culture, Schmid develops a fascinating new perspective upon the social and intellectual contexts of British Romanticism." - James C. McKusick, author of Coleridge's Philosophy of Language and Green Writing: Romanticism and Ecology

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.