Engaging with literature in shared discussions gives us a deeper understanding of great authors such as Joyce, Proust and Shakespeare, and of ourselves. If you have ever wanted to do the same with great works of art, this study is for you.

Building on the success of our ‘Reading Great Paintings’ visits to London’s National and Tate Galleries led by Sean Forester, the LitSalon is pleased to offer an online visual art study. Using Looking at Pictures by Susan Woodford as our guiding text, we will look closely at masterpieces of portraiture, still life, landscape, religious and narrative painting.

We invite you to join us as we discuss the language of painting – composition, colour, light and shade, symbolism, visual narrative – as well as the cultural context in which artworks were created.

JOINING DETAILS:

Nine-week study on Zoom led by Sean Forester

Wednesdays, 4.30-6.30pm (UK)

14, 21, 28 August, 4, 11, 18, 25 September, 9, 16 October 2024

Reference text: Looking at Pictures by Susan Woodford, ISBN-13: 978-0500293218

£270 for nine meetings

N.B. We are considering offering this study again in the near future, please email to let us know if you are interested in joining the waiting list.

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

4 September 2024 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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VIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

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25September 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm9October 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm16October 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm

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thu05sep5:00 pmthu7:00 pmWe Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByNikki FraunhoferType of studyLiteratureDurationThree weeksVIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

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*Photo by Nikki Fraunhofer shows architectural detail from St Stephen Walbrook church, London EC4*

‘I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.’

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

In her last and greatest work, Shirley Jackson invites us into the unsettling and at times chillingly comic world of eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine Blackwood (Merricat). An acknowledged master of the Gothic genre, Jackson puts her own, unique twist on the traditional trope of women trapped in a lonely, decaying house. There, Merricat thrives on magical thinking, burying curios to resist the threat of change, while Constance piles up jams and pickles like gems in a treasury, fending off the harshness of the coming winter with a glut of preserves. The women live socially isolated lives with Uncle Julian as their sole male companion. The fragile balance of this apparent pastoral idyll is unbalanced by the arrival of Cousin Charles. Naïve to the shadow which underpins the sisters’ enforced isolation, Charles sets in motion a chain of events which ends with deadly consequences.

Intriguing and enchanting, the novel explores what lies below the thin veneer of our apparent civilisation.

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Nikki Fraunhofer

We will be using the Penguin Modern Classics edition of We Have Always Lived in the Castle (ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0141191454, 176 pages, including an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates).

Three two-hour meetings: Thursdays 17.00-19.00 (UK), 29 August, 5 & 12 September 2024

£105 for three session study (please see the note on the booking form below if you would like to know more about support which may be available to help with costs).

Organizer

Nikki Fraunhofer

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Time

5 September 2024 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Thanks to the generosity of participants, we have a fund available to support anyone who finds it difficult to afford a study. Please email us, in confidence, using the enquiry option below if you are interested in this possibility.

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mon09sep6:00 pmmon8:00 pmTHE GUERMANTES WAY (later)The third volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Ralph KleinmanType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen weeksVIRTUAL

Event Details

“Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

Marcel Proust

Facilitator Toby Brothers writes:

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the mountains of Modernism. This is my seventh tour through the Search and each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments. This third volume considers closely the draw of the social dance and the realm of social power: you might not think the anxious aristocracy of the Belle Epoque will teach you something about the world you live in – you will be surprised. The groups who have made it through the first two volumes in the last six months are lively and welcoming and we have room for two or three more to join us. If you have not read the first two volumes previously, please contact us to discuss.

Here is how one Salonista describes the pleasure and work of reading Proust: “This is a velvet jewel of a book that demands the attention of a lover full of enchantment and obsession, we need not get impatient as all good lovers perfect their art in taking their time.”

While another observes: “I feel really privileged to be gaining a better understanding of Proust’s amazing work and be able to enjoy the intricacies of his language and thoughts . . . the meetings allow plenty of time and space for exploration and our study is reinforced by emails and relevant essays in between meetings. I am very grateful to have this opportunity to join the study.”

Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although humans are tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealised experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

JOINING DETAILS:

It may be possible for new members to join this group of readers. If you are interested please email litsalon@gmail.com using the subject heading: ‘Joining Proust Group’.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Ralph Kleinman

Mondays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK time)

Thirteen meeting study: 5 weeks from 3 June – 1 July 2024, resuming for 8 weeks from 9 September (beginning with a free ‘regathering’ session for all three Proust groups together from 6.00-8.00 pm) and then 16 September – 18 November 2024 at the normal times (N.B. no meetings on 30 September and 7 October)

Recommended edition: Vintage Classics (Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright) ISBN-13: 978-0099362418

£390 for thirteen meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Ralph Kleinman

Salon Director

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Time

9 September 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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VIRTUAL

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

23September 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm14October 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm21October 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm28October 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm4November 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm11November 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm18November 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

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mon09sep6:00 pmmon8:00 pmTHE GUERMANTES WAY (for second timers)The third volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen weeksVIRTUAL

Event Details

“Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

Marcel Proust

This ‘second time around’ study is designed specifically for people who, having completed their journey through Proust’s monumental creation at least once, have the urge to do it again.

Facilitator Toby Brothers writes:

JOINING DETAILS:

It may be possible for new members to join this group of readers. If you are interested please email litsalon@gmail.com using the subject heading: ‘Joining Proust Group’.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Mondays, 3.30-5.30 pm (UK time)

Thirteen meeting study: 5 weeks from 3 June – 1 July 2024, resuming for 8 weeks from 9 September (beginning with a free ‘regathering’ session for all three Proust groups together from 6.00-8.00 pm) and then 16 September – 18 November 2024 at the normal times (N.B. no meetings on 30 September and 7 October)

Recommended edition: Vintage Classics (Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright) ISBN-13: 978-0099362418

£390 for thirteen meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

9 September 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

23September 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm14October 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm21October 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm28October 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm4November 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm11November 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm18November 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm

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mon09sep6:00 pmmon8:00 pmTHE GUERMANTES WAY (early)The third volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen weeksVIRTUAL

Event Details

“Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

Marcel Proust

Facilitator Toby Brothers writes:

JOINING DETAILS:

It may be possible for new members to join this group of readers. If you are interested please email litsalon@gmail.com using the subject heading: ‘Joining Proust Group’.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Mondays, 1.00-3.00 pm (UK time)

Thirteen meeting study: 5 weeks from 3 June – 1 July 2024, resuming for 8 weeks from 9 September (beginning with a free ‘regathering’ session for all three Proust groups together from 6.00-8.00 pm) and then 16 September – 18 November 2024 at the normal times (N.B. no meetings on 30 September and 7 October)

Recommended edition: Vintage Classics (Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright) ISBN-13: 978-0099362418

£390 for thirteen meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

9 September 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

23September 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm14October 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm21October 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm28October 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm4November 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm11November 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm18November 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

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tue10sep2:30 pmtue4:30 pmULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE - The Slow Read (section 7, the last pages of Scylla & Charybdis; navigating through the Wandering Rocks)THE 'SLOW READ' PART 72:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureVIRTUAL

Event Details

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”

William Faulkner

First published on 2 February 1922 – James Joyce’s 40th birthday – UIysses was immediately controversial, described by one Irish critic as “The most infamously obscene book in ancient or modern literature”.

The ‘Slow Read’ is an opportunity to read and relish of one of the greatest novels of all time in the company of others. The ‘Slow’ approach has proved popular within the Salon as our approach is not driven by completion of the text within a defined timescale, rather we focus on full enjoyment of the material.

In a typical session we might discuss – inter alia – the immaculate conception (who does or does not have a navel?), language as a tool of colonialism (and how to subvert it), space between thought and speech, amor matris, cubist paintings, Thoth (Egyptian bird-headed god), changing understandings of Hamlet, Shakespeare’s sex life, the occult, cypher jugglers, Norse mythology, the dialectic within Stephen’s head, the Daedalus-Icarus myth . . . We are all here for the tangents!

Every time I run a study of Ulysses, there is SO much we do not get to consider: I know we may still not get to everything, but this will be an opportunity to go deeper and wider in this amazing work than ever before in Salon studies. Our run rate is about 5-8 pages a week, with frequent check- ins to see if, as a group, we want to slow down, speed up or just wallow.

The ‘Slow Read’ is served in tranches of two-hour sessions – usually between six and ten in number. As long as there is continued interest, I will keep offering this study until we reach the final notes on the text.

If you are interested in this study but have not previously read Ulysses, please contact us to discuss using the enquiry form below.

“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skilfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvellous work was immense.”

Ulysses Salon participant

I offer many resources for reading around, but the richness of our work comes from the contributions and independent research from participants. This study is particularly opportune given the abundance of new resources available thanks to the 2022 Ulysses centenary, including the offerings of the recently published Cambridge Centenary Ulysses, the brainchild of Catherine Flynn.

Toby Brothers, Director, London Literary Salon

JOINING DETAILS:

This is the seventh section of the ‘Slow Read’ Ulysses study led by Toby Brothers and occasional guest facilitators from within the group, 14 two-hour sessions, Tuesdays from 2.30-4.30 pm (UK), starting on 23 April and ending on 10 September 2024 (see full dates below).

If you are interested in joining this study but have not participated in the first six sections please email the facilitator toby@litsalon.co.uk.

The total cost for this section with all notes and resources is £375.00, we expect to read an average of 8 pages per week.

Please have available these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.
- The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

10 September 2024 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL

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tue10sep6:00 pmtue8:00 pmThe Art of Reading Aloud #26:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJane Wymark & Caroline HammondType of studyPoetryDurationThree weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

*Image credit: Reading Aloud by Hanna Hirsch-Pauli, public domain*

“Every time you read a poem aloud to yourself in the presence of others, you are reading it into yourself and them. Voice helps to carry words farther and deeper than the eye.“

Seamus Heaney

Reading aloud, the joy of hearing text come off the page in different voices, is at the heart of the studies that both Jane and Caroline lead. While these may not be performances as such, sharing poetry and theatre as a group brings us closer to unlocking the meaning and interpretation of these texts and can amplify the pleasure we derive from the work. But what are the elements that we draw upon when we read?

With a maximum of six participants to allow to allow time for individual readings, in this series of three workshops we will explore aspects of sound and speech that are rarely included in our regular Salon studies, with their strong focus on text and analysis. Suitable for readers with all levels of confidence, this fun and inclusive study will be useful and enlightening for anyone who regularly attends the Salon.

Each week we will focus on a different poem: Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare, The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins and And Yet the Books by Czeslaw Milosz. We will aim to demystify the practice of reading aloud as we consider meter, pacing and emphasis using these three very different poems as our guides. Most importantly, we will enjoy the process of bringing the words to life.

And Yet the Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are,” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

Berkeley, 1986
Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Haas

JOINING DETAILS:

Three-workshops facilitated by Caroline Hammond and Jane Wymark

Maximum six participants

Tuesdays, 6.00–8.00 pm (UK), 10, 17, 24 September 2024

£130 for three meeting study, including background materials and opening notes

Organizer

Jane Wymark & Caroline Hammond

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Time

10 September 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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24September 6:00 pm

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sun15sep1:30 pmsun4:00 pmGrief(s) - collective, private & ecological mourning (earlier session)1:30 pm - 4:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyPoetryDurationTwo and a half hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

*Image: Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity’s Gate) by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890, creative commons*

FOLLOWING THE SUCCESS OF THIS STUDY IN 2023, WE ARE OFFERING IT AGAIN FOR 2024 AND HAVE ADDED THIS SECOND (EARLIER) SESSION TO MEET DEMAND

i held an atlas in my lap

ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered

where does it hurt?

it answered

everywhere

everywhere

everywhere.

Warsan Shire, What They Did Yesterday Afternoon

To live is to love, in all its many forms. Myriad entities become the subjects of our love: human and non-human animals, the land and water and sky. Because we love, we must suffer its corollary—loss. But how do we process the many losses we face, personal and collective, over a lifetime? Experts say that in the West our mourning rituals have diminished, even while we are confronted with increasing reasons to feel grief. Today, the world feels deeply damaged. Everywhere, it and we are hurting. In the last two decades alone, we have been confronted with raging wildfires. Increasing hate crimes. The depletion of non-renewable resources. A global pandemic. In these unsettling times, every flash of breaking news is enough to crack the human heart. And while we bear these, we continue to sustain personal devastation.

Can poetry help us process our grief? Can it be part of a grieving practice to help us make sense of our feelings? Can it invite us into a community of mourners who find strength in each other’s stories? Can it teach us about other cultures’ forms of mourning? In this workshop, we will examine three poems exploring different kinds of grief: collective, private and ecological. Join Julie Sutherland in a study of poems by Heid E. Erdrich (Public Grief), Jackie Kay (Darling), and Pamela Mordecai (My Sister Cries the Sea). We will close the session with a reading of Mary Oliver’s In Blackwater Woods.

Please note: This workshop is rooted in the belief that poetry has the power to heal emotional wounds, shift public attitudes towards divisive topics and improve social connectedness during times of global distress. To allow participants extra time to experience the poetry contemplatively as well as intellectually, the single session runs for 2.5 hours.

STUDY DETAILS:

Single session study on Zoom led by Julie Sutherland

Links to the poems included in the study: Public Grief by Heid E. Erdrich; Jackie Kay’s Darling (download); My sister cries the sea by Pamela Mordecai; In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver.

Sunday 15 September 2024, 1.30-4.00 pm (UK)

£45 including introductory notes

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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Time

15 September 2024 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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sun15sep5:00 pmsun7:30 pmGrief(s) - collective, private & ecological mourning5:00 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyPoetryDurationTwo and a half hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

FOLLOWING THE SUCCESS OF THIS STUDY IN 2023, WE ARE OFFERING IT AGAIN FOR 2024 AND, IN RESPONSE TO DEMAND, WE HAVE NOW OPENED A SECOND SESSION EARLIER ON THE SAME DAY

i held an atlas in my lap

ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered

where does it hurt?

it answered

everywhere

everywhere

everywhere.

Warsan Shire, What They Did Yesterday Afternoon

STUDY DETAILS:

Single session study on Zoom led by Julie Sutherland

Links to the poems included in the study: Public Grief by Heid E. Erdrich; Jackie Kay’s Darling (download); My sister cries the sea by Pamela Mordecai; In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver.

Sunday 15 September 2024, 5.00-7.30 pm (UK)

£45 including introductory notes

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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Time

15 September 2024 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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mon16sep6:00 pmmon8:00 pmWilliam Shakespeare's The Tempest6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJane WymarkType of studyDramaDurationEight weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

In 1741 a statue in memory of William Shakespeare was erected in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner. The poet leans on a pile of books and points to a scroll on which are quoted lines from Prospero in The Tempest. By 2012, when the actor Kenneth Branagh – dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel – recited a speech of Caliban’s as part of the opening ceremony for the London Olympics, Shakespeare’s reputation as England’s greatest poet and playwright had long been written in stone.

Even so, until the mid 19^th century, adaptations of the play dominated. Foremost was John Dryden’s The Enchanted Island which added several characters – Dorinda, a sister to Miranda, Sycorax became Caliban’s sister, and Prospero was given a foster son Hippolito (a popular ‘breeches’ role for an actress) – and heavily emphasised monarchy as the natural form of government. The actor-manager Charles Macready reinstated Shakespeare’s original text in 1838, but in Charles Kean’s 1857 production the play had to again be heavily cut to allow for many lavish set changes and stage effects.

In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries Caliban became regarded as the star role, with the actor Frank Benson much admired for hanging upside down in a tree. It was not until the 1970s that a colonial reading of the play emerged, with Jonathan Miller’s production described as ‘the tragic and inevitable disintegration of a more primitive culture as the result of European invasion and colonisation’.

Over the years the play has been adapted as an opera, a ballet, a film and a Bunraku puppet show. In the RSC’s 2016 production, cinematic performance capture projected Ariel onto the stage in real time.

Although it appears as the opening play in the First Folio, in the canon The Tempest is always listed as the last play that Shakespeare wrote entirely alone. It is a fascinating text that we will read and discuss over eight sessions, beginning on Monday 16 September.

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight meeting study on Zoom led by Jane Wymark

Mondays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK), 16 September to 4 November 2024

Recommended edition: The Tempest, The Arden Shakespeare, edited by Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan, ISBN: 978-1408133477

£240 for eight meetings, to include opening notes and background resources.

Organizer

Jane Wymark

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Time

16 September 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

23September 6:00 pm30September 6:00 pm7October 6:00 pm14October 6:00 pm21October 6:00 pm28October 6:00 pm4November 6:00 pm

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tue17sep2:30 pmtue4:30 pmULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE - The Slow Read (section 8, Cyclops . . .)THE 'SLOW READ' PART 82:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationEleven meetingsVIRTUAL

Event Details

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”

William Faulkner

If you are interested in this study but have not previously read Ulysses, please contact us to discuss using the enquiry form below.

“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skilfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvellous work was immense.”

Ulysses Salon participant

Toby Brothers, Director, London Literary Salon

JOINING DETAILS:

This is the eighth section of the ‘Slow Read’ Ulysses study led by Toby Brothers and occasional guest facilitators from within the group, 11 two-hour sessions, Tuesdays from 2.30-4.30 pm (UK), starting on 17 September and ending on 3 December 2024 (no meeting on 1 October, see full dates below).

If you are interested in joining this study but have not participated in the first seven sections please email the facilitator toby@litsalon.co.uk.

The total cost for this section with all notes and resources is £300.00, we expect to read an average of 8 pages per week.

Please have available these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.
- The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

17 September 2024 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL

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24September 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm8October 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm15October 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm22October 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm29October 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm5November 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm12November 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm19November 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm26November 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm3December 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm

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Event Details

The Iliad is one of the first written works in Western literature, and undoubtedly one of the greatest. Although the story of its composition and recording remains a subject of scholarly debate, we can tentatively date it to the late 8^th or early 7^th Century BCE. It is impossible to overestimate its importance which extends beyond literature to influence art, culture, society and morals – Alexander the Great carried the copy given to him by Aristotle on his campaigns, and John Keats was inspired to write one of his most perfect sonnets after a night of reading.

The Iliad is a thrilling and heart-wrenching poem about war, human mortality and loss. But it is also about friendship, families, the natural world, love and redemption. One of the joys of the work, and perhaps why re-reading is so rewarding, is the richness and relatability of Homer’s world. Richness takes many forms, including a huge cast of characters, vivid language and similes, and how invested we become in this epic story. Homer invites us into a world that is both familiar and strange. The society is patriarchal, slave-holding, monarchical and polytheistic. The text is more than two and a half thousand years old, yet the characters speak directly to our own experience. Who hasn’t feared for a loved one? Or been mad at their boss (hopefully not mad enough to draw a sword against them)? Or wondered at the beauty of the sunrise?

Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Iliad was published to critical acclaim in 2023:

“Wilson’s approachable storytelling tone invites us in, only to startle us with eruptions of beauty… Wilson’s transformation of such a familiar and foundational work is astonishing.”

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, The Atlantic

Using iambic pentameter – the rhythm of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton – Wilson’s translation has the lyrical quality the Ancient Greeks would have experienced as the work is so closely linked to performance. Her writing is brisk and readable and brings a fresh perspective to an ancient tale. It offers additional resources – including maps, footnotes and introduction – which support our reading and engagement with the text.

“Wilson’s translation, in iambic pentameter, runs as swift as a bloody river, teems with the clattering sounds of war, bursts with the warriors’ hunger for battle, and almost every line pulses with endless, terrible loss and mourning: death after death after death.”

Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian

We will combine a close reading of the text with bonus features: poems and art inspired by the epic, consideration of the psychology of war and images of museum exhibits.

The study is divided into two sections: the first six sessions will cover books 1-12, followed by a two-week break and then six further sessions for the final 12 books.

JOINING DETAILS:

Twelve meeting study on Zoom facilitated by Caroline Hammond and Susanna Taggart

Wednesdays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK), six meetings from 18 September to 23 October (books 1-12), NO meetings on 30 October and 6 November, six further meetings from 13 November to 18 December (books 13-24).

We’ll use Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad by Homer (ISBN-10: 1324076143 ; ISBN-13: 978-1324076148)

£420 for 12 meetings with two facilitators, to include opening notes and resources. It may be possible to book the two sections separately, please email litsalon@gmail.com if you would prefer this option.

Organizer

Susanna Taggart & Caroline Hammond

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Time

18 September 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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wed18sep6:30 pmwed8:30 pmMarcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time Volume 6: FINDING TIME AGAINTHE FINAL VOLUME OF PROUST'S IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME - 11 MEETINGS6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationEleven meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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“Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

Marcel Proust

With this final volume of In Search of Lost Time we reach the end of the journey for the groups that have been studying Proust for the past two years, and I complete my seventh tour through this mountain of modernism. Each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments.

If you are interested in reading Proust from the beginning, please watch our website for the next Proust cycle that will commence early in 2025 and make sure you are signed up for our newsletter in which we announce new studies.

Here is how one Salonista describes the pleasure and work of reading Proust: ”This is a velvet jewel of a book that demands the attention of a lover full of enchantment and obsession, we need not get impatient as all good lovers perfect their art in taking their time.”

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Wednesdays 6.30-8.30 pm

Eleven meeting virtual study (on Zoom) from 18 September – 11 December 2024 (N.B. no meetings on 2 and 30 October)

Recommended edition: Penguin Classics Finding Time Again (Patterson/Prendergast) ISBN: 9780141180366 (the Vintage Classics edition: Time Regained ISBN: 978009936271 5 is also acceptable)

£330 for 11 meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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18 September 2024 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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thu19sep6:00 pmthu8:00 pmThe Existentialist Salon6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByEmilia SteuermanType of studyPhilosophy & LiteratureDurationSix meetingsVIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

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*Image by kind permission of Susanna Steuerman-Kinston*

In the Existentialist Salon we will be reading Sarah Bakewell’s At The Existentialist Cafe, a delightful, accessible but nonetheless very solid introduction to the philosophical and historical dimensions of existentialism. Thus, we will encounter Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir sipping apricot cocktails and wishing for a more relevant form of philosophy. We will understand the need for and meaning of existentialism, especially as we remember and reflect on the experience of war and occupation, and consider how it forces us to think about personal and political choices.

Along the way we will become acquainted with the main ideas of Husserl and Heidegger, the founding ‘fathers’ of existentialism, and discuss Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Finally, we will read a short story by Sartre, The Wall, which encapsulates in literary form the fundamental themes of existentialism.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six-week study on Zoom led by Emilia Steuerman

Thursdays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK), 19 & 26 September, 3, 10, 17, 24 October 2024

As the basis of this study we will read Sarah Bakewell’s At The Existentialist Cafe, ISBN-13: 978-0099554882

£180 for six meetings, including opening notes and resources

Organizer

Emilia Steuerman

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Time

19 September 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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tue24sep12:00 pmtue2:00 pmThe Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, by José Saramago 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByDesma LawrenceType of studyLiteratureDurationSeven meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, published in 1984, was the first best-selling novel of Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago.

Set in 1935-1936, Saramago brings Ricardo Reis, one of the heteronyms (literary creations) of Portugal’s great modernist poet Fernando Pessoa, back to Lisbon from his exile in Brazil. Reis reacquaints himself with the city of his childhood, wrestles with love and desire, and converses with the ghost of his old friend Fernando Pessoa, who has recently passed away. Meanwhile the clouds of fascism gather in Europe, and in Portugal.

In the words of its translator, Giovanni Pontiero, this novel is “like some great book of life” ranging over ideas and “issues that no thinking person or artist can ignore.” There are many threads to pull on, and in the course of the study we will converse with Saramago, Reis and Pessoa on truth, on love and death, art, existence and nothingness, solitude and politics, philosophy and the nature of the self.

This study is for anyone interested in engaging in a wide-ranging conversation on these universal themes. But there is also much in this novel that is historically and contemporarily salient as Saramago, not content to merely contemplate the world, engages us in a deep examination of values, personal and political, against the threat of menacing forms of xenophobia and ultra-nationalism.

If you have already participated in the LitSalon Introduction to Fernando Pessoa, this study is an ideal sequel. If you have not yet encountered Pessoa’s work, or if you are interested in doing a future Pessoa study, Saramago’s book is a wonderful entry point into the incredible multiplicity of Pessoa’s literary achievement.

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven week study led by Desma Lawrence

Tuesdays, 12.00-2.00 pm (UK time), 24 September – 5 November 2024

Recommended edition: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by José Saramago, Vintage Classics, ISBN: 9781860465024

£210 for seven two-hour meetings, to include introductory notes and resources.

Organizer

Desma Lawrence

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Time

24 September 2024 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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thu26sep6:00 pmthu8:00 pmGustave Flaubert's A Simple Heart6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByRalph KleinmanType of studyLiteratureDurationTwo hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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Often referred to as the first modern novelist and the inventor of literary realism, Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) wrote precise fiction in reaction to idealism and romanticism. His goal was to present the world as it really was. He used clear and concise language (he wanted to remove all poetry from his writing), a meticulous attention to detail, a crystalline structure, and brilliant psychological insights into his characters. Literature was never the same again.

His last finished work was a set of three novellas, called, simply, Three Tales (in French, Trois Contes). A Simple Heart (in French, Un Cœur Simple) is the first and, in my opinion, the most astonishing of the three tales. The other two stories are much more traditional, full of drama and conflict, as well as sex, violence and murder. But there’s very little of any of those things in the quiet retelling of the long years of the life of Félicité, who works as a maid in a country house.

So why read A Simple Heart? What is left when the dramatic tension is leached from a story? Merely perfect language, movingly describing life in the real world, devoid of illusion. In short, a revolutionary work of brilliance.

JOINING DETAILS:

Single session study (on Zoom) led by Ralph Kleinman

Thursday 26 September, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK)

Recommended editions: Three Tales, translated by Roger Whitehouse, Penguin Classics, ISBN-13: ‎978-0140448009; A Simple Heart, translated by Charlotte Mandell, Melville House Publishing, ISBN-13: ‎978-0974607887

£30 for one two-hour meeting

Organizer

Ralph Kleinman

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Time

26 September 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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sun29sep(sep 29)5:00 pmwed02oct(oct 2)1:00 pmVirginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse – four day study in St Ives5:00 pm - (October 2) 1:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiterature,TravelDurationFour daysSt Ives, Cornwall

Event Details

It is now a Salon tradition to spend some time each year in St Ives reading Virginia Woolf’s work and enjoying a place she loved and in which she spent significant parts of her childhood. In 2024 we will again offer two Woolf studies in St Ives: To the Lighthouse (29 September to 2 October) and Jacob’s Room (4 to 7 October).

The Cornish coastal town of St Ives serves as a prism through which we will explore Woolf’s perspectives on landscape, domesticity and identity in To the Lighthouse. We have already completed five magical journeys through this book in the environment that inspired it – this is an incredible experience!

“This is something I have dreamed of doing since I first read Woolf’s magical book To the Lighthouse – it has haunted me always. The opportunity to study this work with a keen group of minds in the place that is so crucial to the writing is simply delicious.“

Toby Brothers

During our visit you will have the opportunity to visit the iconic Tate St Ives gallery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, built between 1988 and 1993 on the site of an old gasworks. If weather allows, there will be an optional boat trip to Godrevy Lighthouse and we also hope to look at Talland House, Woolf’s childhood summer home (now privately owned). For several months of the year the elegant house overlooking St Ives Bay would be the Stephens’ family home until 1895 when Virginia’s mother, Julia Stephen, died. Although the complete family never returned to St Ives following their mother’s death, her children travelled back in 1905 following the death of their father in 1904.

“What is the meaning of life? That was all – a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“If life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills – then my bowl without doubt stands upon this memory. It is of lying in bed, half-asleep, half awake, in bed in the nursery at St Ives. It is of hearing the waves breaking, one, two, one, two, and sending a splash of water over the beach; and then breaking, one, two, one two, behind a yellow blind . . . If I were a painter I should paint these impressions in pale yellow, silver, and green. There was the pale yellow blind; the green sea; and the silver of the passion flowers.”

“Here is the past and all its inhabitants miraculously sealed as in a magic tank.”

“The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. The past sometimes presses so close that you can feel nothing else.”

Virginia Woolf, “Sketch of the Past”, begun in June 1939

Feedback from participants in previous St Ives studies:

“The studio where the discussion took place is a beautiful, extraordinary place, the participants were imbued with the light and landscape, creating a friendly and committed atmosphere. The two facilitators were wonderful . . .”

“The collaboration between participants and facilitators was rich indeed, and I wonder how it was accomplished that everyone in the group was so insightful and intelligent and I might even say soul-searching . . . I also think it was just a superb group of people.”

Read Salonista Leah Jewett’s account of a Salon Study in St Ives here.

SALON DETAILS:

Please use the form below to secure your place with an initial registration deposit of £20.00. Once you have registered we will then send you details for payment of the balance owing (£500) to complete your booking (N.B. bank details may be different from those you have used on previous occasions).

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Our meetings will take place in the fabulous Porthmeor Studios

29 September to 2 October 2024 (approximately 14 hours of study)

Recommended edition: To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf, with introduction by Hermione Lee, Penguin Classics, ISBN: 9780241371954

Cost £520, includes notes and critical resources (N.B. travel, food and accommodation are NOT included and participants are responsible for arranging their own travel, accommodation and insurance).

Recommended places to stay include No 4 St Ives, 3 Porthminster Terrace, Blue Sky, The Olive Branch, Rivendell and the Harbour View Hotel, but PLEASE check web details and review sites before booking to make sure they meet your needs.

More on the study:

As one of the primary modernist works, To the Lighthouse demonstrates Woolf at play with language; testing the ability of language to truly reflect human experience by recording the life of the mind not just action. One of the characteristics of modernist writing is a shifting centre of narrative perspective, reflecting a questioning of ultimate and moral authority at a time experiencing the dissolution of Imperialism and absolute values.

Writing from the edge of the violent shift from the Victorian to the Modernist era, Woolf’s ambivalence is demonstrated in her work. She struggles against the boundaries and structures of the Victorian age while holding a great longing and nostalgia for the noble traditions of the time. Her model, Mrs. Ramsey, (queen-like) holds her daughters to the awe of the noble men that surround her and allows them to “sport with infidel ideas…of a life different…in Paris perhaps; …for there was in all their minds a mute questioning of deference and chivalry…though to them all there was something in this of the essence of beauty, which called out the manliness in their girlish hearts…” (To the Lighthouse, pages 10-11).

This quote also demonstrates the Modernist reworking of absolute truth…it is not a question of either this (a male-dominated world) or that (a world of female emancipation): the apparently rigid gender roles borrow from each other — “manliness in their girlish hearts”, “Indeed, she had the whole of the other sex under her protection…” — there is another imperialism here, an intimate imperialism of female over male. The truth in this work is not rigid (although Mr. R would like it to be) but can be permeated, blended — seen from another view.

Re-reading Hermione Lee’s biography of Virginia Woolf (a review of which is quoted below) has me turning over the search one makes for lost childhood, often for a place that might hold a time but, of course, never does. For Woolf, that search included a grappling with the impact and idealisation of the parent figures — especially the lost mother, whose influence and contradictions continue to wrap around the child inside. Virginia Woolf and a few of her siblings returned to the house in St Ives (that we are lucky enough to visit) years after her mother’s death and the sale of the house. They were like ghosts, sneaking around the gardens, peering in the windows: as though searching for their lost selves and a past that can never be recaptured. That visit — and the need to lay to rest her grief-enwrapped memories of her mother — was the catalyst for To the Lighthouse.

For those who want to go further, here is an excerpt from a review of Hermione Lee’s Virginia Woolf which is a great read:

“Ms. Lee documents the evolving perception of her subject from ”the delicate lady authoress of a few experimental novels and sketches, some essays and a ‘writer’s’ diary, to one of the most professional, perfectionist, energetic, courageous and committed writers in the language.” She does this without recourse to the politicised agendas of the academy or special pleading (all of Woolf’s flaws are on display here); this account sets itself above the fray, the better to home in on the glittery and elusive creature at its centre — the prize catch in what one critic has described as the Bloomsbury pond. From its very first page, Ms. Lee’s book is informed by current thinking on how to approach the writing of someone’s life: “There is no such thing as an objective biography, particularly not in this case. Positions have been taken, myths have been made.” But it is also infused with a very personal passion for her subject, which enables the author to cut crisply through the labyrinth of theories that have sprung up…”

– Daphne Merkin, This Loose, Drifting Material of Life

Although To the Lighthouse is not autobiographical, many critics and readers have found close parallels between Woolf’s early life and the world presented in the book. As we go into the read, it may help you to have a sense of Virginia Woolf and her precarious position as a visionary on the edge of a violently changing world. I will have more biographical notes for you when we start.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

29 September 2024 5:00 pm - 2 October 2024 1:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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St Ives, Cornwall

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October 2024

fri04oct(oct 4)5:00 pmmon07(oct 7)1:00 pmVirginia Woolf’s Jacob's Room – four day study in St Ives5:00 pm - 1:00 pm (7)(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Sarah SnoxallType of studyLiterature,TravelDurationFour daysSt Ives, Cornwall

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As one of the key members of the celebrated Bloomsbury Group, Woolf is often seen as a London writer, but the Cornish coastal town of St Ives – where she spent many childhood summers – serves as a prism through which we can explore her perspectives on landscape, domesticity and identity.

In 1922, Jacob’s Room, Virginia Woolf’s third novel, was the first book to be published by the Woolfs’ own imprint, the Hogarth Press. This book is the linchpin between the more traditional novel form and Woolf’s leap forward into the modernist mode. She lets go of event and character development to make room for the intensity of living — that incredible burning that may look from one angle like inconsequence, but from another angle the very heart of being.

This was also the form she chose to address the unimaginable moment of war — ripping into the heat of life and leaving only gaping space where a beloved son had been. Her decision not to narrate the war and the resultant deaths directly, but to use her art to demonstrate the gashed web of connection that is left behind, was controversial for her contemporary audience. How do we narrate the unliveable events that circumscribe our identity in the historical moment? This is in part what Woolf responds to – not philosophically, but aesthetically.

Woolf is also engaging the question she will pursue through all of her literature: how do we know each other? How do the various planes of personality, the glimpses of each other’s interior, add up to an authentic being?

“. . . having this afternoon arrived at some idea of a new form for a new novel. Suppose one thing should open out of another . . . only not for 10 pages but 200 or so–doesn’t that give the looseness and lightness I want; doesn’t that get closer and yet keep form and speed, and enclose everything, everything? My doubt is how far it will enclose the human heart–Am I sufficiently mistress of my dialogue to net it there? For I figure that the approach will be entirely different this time: no scaffolding; scarcely a brick to be seen; all crepuscular, but the heart, the passion, humour, everything as bright as fire in the mist. Then I’ll find room for so much—a gaiety–an inconsequence – a light spirited stepping at my sweet will. Whether I’m sufficiently mistress of things – that’s the doubt; but conceive ‘Mark on the Wall ‘, ‘Kew Gardens’ and Unwritten Novel taking hands and dancing in unity. What the unity shall be I have yet to discover; the theme is a blank to me . . .”

Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary, 26 January 1920

“If life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills – then my bowl without doubt stands upon this memory. It is of lying in bed, half-asleep, half awake, in bed in the nursery at St Ives. It is of hearing the waves breaking, one, two, one, two, and sending a splash of water over the beach; and then breaking, one, two, one two, behind a yellow blind . . . If I were a painter I should paint these impressions in pale yellow, silver, and green. There was the pale yellow blind; the green sea; and the silver of the passion flowers.”

“Here is the past and all its inhabitants miraculously sealed as in a magic tank.”

“The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. The past sometimes presses so close that you can feel nothing else.”

Virginia Woolf, “Sketch of the Past”, begun in June 1939

Feedback from participants in previous St Ives studies:

Read Salonista Leah Jewett’s account of a Salon Study in St Ives here.

SALON DETAILS:

Please use the form below to secure your place with an initial registration deposit of £20.00. Once you have registered we will then send you details for payment of the balance owing (£540.00) to complete your booking by bank transfer.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Sarah Snoxall

Our meetings will take place in the fabulous Porthmeor Studios

4 to 7 October 2024 (approximately 14 hours of study)

Recommended edition: Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf, Vintage Classics, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1784877958

Cost £560, includes notes and critical resources (N.B. travel, food and accommodation are NOT included and participants are responsible for arranging their own travel, accommodation and insurance).

Recommended places to stay include No 4 St Ives, 3 Porthminster Terrace, Blue Sky, The Olive Branch, Rivendell and the Harbour View Hotel, but PLEASE check web details and review sites before booking to make sure they meet your needs.

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Sarah Snoxall

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Time

4 October 2024 5:00 pm - 7 October 2024 1:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

St Ives, Cornwall

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wed09oct1:00 pmwed3:00 pmShakespeare's Richard II1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJane WymarkType of studyDrama,LiteratureDurationEight meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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*Image © 2022 Dean and Chapter of Westminster*

“ What is your substance, whereof are you made
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?”

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 53

Shadow and substance — and the contrast between them — are recurring preoccupations in the works of William Shakespeare. In Richard II these ideas take centre stage and, as Emma Smith observes in her book This is Shakespeare, go on to spread an ‘unquiet legacy’ over the entire sequence of eight plays concerned with Plantagenet monarchs.

The questions raised by the play are fundamental in the context of a hereditary monarchy. Is there a Divine Right embodied in a crowned monarch? Is it best to dethrone an inadequate ruler, or will the ripples from that lead to an even worse situation?

Richard II is thought to have been written in 1595 and is the first of a tetralogy — followed by Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V — sometimes called the Henriad. The production history of the play is fascinating: possibly the most famous performance was the one commanded by the followers of the Earl of Essex, which took place the night before his failed rebellion and very nearly got Shakespeare’s company into serious trouble.

Given the politically controversial inclusion of a scene portraying the king being deposed, it is perhaps not surprising that after this the original play languished in the shadows for centuries, appearing only in various Bowdlerised versions. The bias against it continued into the eighteenth century with only two productions recorded, although at least one of these – John Rich’s Covent Garden production of 1738/9 – is reported as using the text “in something near a complete form”.

In the nineteenth century the play became a star vehicle, but yet again the text was sacrificed, in this case to Victorian spectacle rather than to radical rewriting. It was not until the early twentieth century that the play was brought back into the spotlight in its original form by leading producers and actors, including John Gielgud, since when it has been regularly produced.

As we read the play in our own turbulent times and the House of Windsor faces bruising internal conflicts, we will consider, amongst other questions, why is this play so interesting to a modern audience and how relevant are the issues it raises to contemporary rulers?

STUDY DETAILS:

Eight-meeting virtual study (on Zoom) facilitated by Jane Wymark

Wednesday afternoons, 1.00-3.00 pm (UK), starting 9 October 2024

Recommended editions: The Arden Shakespeare, ISBN-13: 978-1903436332 or Folger Shakespeare ISBN-13: ‏ 978-1501146282

£240.00 for eight meetings

Organizer

Jane Wymark

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9 October 2024 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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thu10oct5:30 pmthu7:30 pmJames, Jim & Huckleberry Finn . . . history reframed5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationSix meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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With publication of his latest novel, James, the philosopher, writer and teacher Percival Everett has recharged conversations around race, history and literature. By harnessing that venerable but creaking grandfather of American literature, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Everett has illuminated the space of Black Americans in the historical dialogue of the United States, transcending the silence historically imposed on the enslaved population.

For this study, we will consider some of the sections of Huckleberry Finn that Everett reenvisions in James, but our focus will be on how James centres Black experience in this world of violence and dehumanisation. Twain’s work has been celebrated across generations, but in recent decades the book’s problematic aspects – always present, if we have been attentive – have become the focus of discourse and re-consideration of the text. We have reached the point where a new edition removes all the n-words, as though this might fix the structural racism of that time and of our own.

Focusing on the distinctive power of his portrayal of characters in James, we will explore how Everett dismantles the dehumanisation of Twain’s portrayal of Jim, Huck’s mentor and friend. We will explore how the strange contradictions of Twain’s writing that sought to normalise the racism and violence of the South are brilliantly addressed in Everett’s work.

Our study of these two works will involve far more than just a backwards glance to the oppression of the past. In James, Percival Everett deftly demonstrates how the act of signifying – a practice described by the American literary scholar and cultural theorist Henry Louis Gates Jr. – draws on formidable writings and representations of the past while establishing a more expansive understanding of human identity through language and creative design.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six week study (on Zoom) led by Toby Brothers

Thursdays, 5.30-7.30 pm (UK), 10 October-14 November 2024

Recommended editions: James by Percival Everett (hardback), ISBN-13: 9781035031238; The Adventures Huckleberry Finn Penguin Classics 2014, ISBN-13: 978-0142437179.

£180 for six meeting study

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

10 October 2024 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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sun13oct4:00 pmsun6:00 pm"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized BySean ForesterType of studyPoetryDurationTwo meetingsVIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

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Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

Written when the poet was just 22, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock“, was the first of T.S. Eliot’s poems to be published (in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse).

Acclaimed today as a modernist masterpiece, the poem is glorious to read aloud but sometimes elusive in its meaning – Eliot himself described the work as a ‘drama of literary anguish’. The character of Prufrock is a tragi-comic hero (or perhaps anti-hero) and, as readers, we work at untangling the literal from the symbolic to understand what it is he wants to say.

One of the challenges of studying poetry is not just to read it but to hear it. As we examine this poem we will read it aloud together, discuss its imagery, intention and effect and consider what insights it offers into human experience.

JOINING DETAILS:

Two meeting study (on Zoom) led by Sean Forester

Sundays, 4.00-6.00 pm (UK), 13 & 20 October

£60 for two meetings, including opening notes and resources

Participants are welcome to use any edition of the poem as long as it has line numbers for reference.

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

13 October 2024 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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20October 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

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wed23oct(oct 23)11:00 pmthu24(oct 24)1:00 amThe Best of The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke11:00 pm - 1:00 am (24)(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyDramaDurationSix meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

We are offering this Salon at a time that makes it particularly accessible to participants in the US and Canada (and rather late in the day for those in the UK and Europe). In this study we will read carefully curated selections from the play’s text.

Awash in murder, madness and revenge, Hamlet has spoken to the ‘beast’ in humankind for over four centuries. Written around the turn of the 17^th century, Hamlet – in its fullest version – runs for over four hours. Even then, good productions of the sensational play can hold audiences in thrall. But, despite its preoccupation with violence and vengeance, Hamlet is also deeply philosophical, and bloodlust often takes a back seat to considerations of ethics and the moral course of action. It is the tension between these two aspects of humankind – part base, part noble – that has made this protagonist and the host of characters who come into his sphere so magnetic.

In this six-session series participants will engage in reading and discussing key scenes in Hamlet, including all seven of his soliloquies. As we undertake a close analysis of the play, we will examine the elements that make it a great revenge tragedy, but we will also consider ways in which Shakespeare makes it about so much more than revenge alone.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six session study on Zoom led by Julie Sutherland

Wednesday, 23 October-27 November, 6.00-8.00 pm Eastern time (3.00-5.00 pm Pacific time; 11.00 pm-1.00 am GMT)

£180 for six two-hour meetings, to include opening notes and resources

Recommended text: we strongly encourage participants to acquire the Arden Shakespeare Hamlet, revised edition, editors Ann Thompson & Neil Taylor: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/hamlet-9781472518385/. Variations between texts can be significant, having the same version will facilitate reading and discussion. N.B. Contrary to what Amazon says in its description, this edition presents an authoritative, modernised text based on the Second Quarto text (1604/5), which was printed from a manuscript believed to be Shakespeare’s ‘foul papers’ (his rough drafts).

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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Time

23 October 2024 11:00 pm - 24 October 2024 1:00 am(GMT+01:00)

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mon28oct6:00 pmmon8:00 pmVirginia Woolf's Short Stories6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByKarina JakubowiczType of studyLiteratureDurationSix weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

*Portrait of Virginia Woolf by Roger Fry*

Virginia Woolf is deservedly classed as one of the best novelists of the early twentieth century, but what of her short stories? This study is designed to give these shorter texts the time and attention they merit. Participants will discover that they yield the same expansive meanings and levels of complexity as her longer works, and are arguably even more mysterious and engaging.

Far from being mere experiments, these texts serve as expertly and precisely crafted philosophical and aesthetic explorations. Each piece is captivatingly jewel-like, showing off Woolf’s expert handling of imagery and style.

We don’t often offer lectures in the Salon, but this particular study will begin with an introductory lecture by Dr Karina Jakubowicz on Woolf and the short story form. She will provide some background to Woolf as a short story writer before diving into some of the complexities (and controversies) behind her best known shorter works. Participants will then read and discuss one short story per week, covering such seminal texts as Kew Gardens, Mrs Dalloway on Bond St and the fictionalised essay, Street Haunting.

Follow this link to book to join the lecture alone without the following study sessions on individual stories.

Introductory lecture by Karina Jakubowicz (on Zoom)

The Mark on the Wall

Kew Gardens

Mrs Dalloway on Bond St

Solid Objects

Street Haunting

JOINING DETAILS:

Six-week study of Virginia Woolf’s short stories led by Karina Jakubowicz on Zoom

Mondays 6.00-8.00 pm (UK time), 28 October, 4, 11, 18 & 25 November, 2 December

Introductory lecture Karina Jakubowicz followed by five study meetings devoted to individual stories (as listed above)

£200 for six week study including lecture or £30 for the two-hour lecture alone

Please email litsalon@gmail.com for options to add ongoing assessment and certification and/or to access a recording of the lecture.

Organizer

Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

28 October 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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4November 6:00 pm11November 6:00 pm18November 6:00 pm25November 6:00 pm2December 6:00 pm

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mon28oct6:00 pmmon8:00 pmVirginia Woolf's Short Stories - introductory lecture by Karina Jakubowicz6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByKarina JakubowiczType of studyLiteratureDurationTwo hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

Virginia Woolf is deservedly classed as one of the best novelists of the early twentieth century, but what of her short stories? Far from being mere experiments, these texts serve as expertly and precisely crafted philosophical and aesthetic explorations. Each piece is captivatingly jewel-like, showing off Woolf’s expert handling of imagery and style.

Participants in the full study will go on to read and discuss one short story per week, covering such seminal texts as Kew Gardens, Mrs Dalloway on Bond St and the fictionalised essay, Street Haunting.

JOINING DETAILS:

Lecture on Virginia Woolf’s short stories by Karina Jakubowicz on Zoom

Monday 28 October, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK time)

£30 for the two-hour lecture alone

Please email litsalon@gmail.com for options to add ongoing assessment and certification and/or to access a recording of the lecture.

Organizer

Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

28 October 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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November 2024

sun03nov4:00 pmsun6:00 pmThe Waste Land by T.S. Eliot4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized BySean ForesterType of studyPoetryDurationFive meetingsVIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

Event Details

*Il Sole,* *Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

“In Eliot the very images and the sound of the words—even when we do not know precisely why he has chosen them—are charged with a strange poignancy . . . . And sometimes we feel that he is speaking not only for a personal distress, but for the starvation of a whole civilization.”

Edmund Wilson

This is how Edmund Wilson describes T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land, one of the most significant poems of the 20th century. The LitSalon has recently studied the Divine Comedy, a poem of psychological depth and crystalline order. Dante was one of T. S. Eliot’s poetic heroes, and Eliot’s poems also contain philosophical and psychological complexity, but crystalline order? No: rather a kaleidoscope of imagery and allusions, a tapestry of mythology, history, and literature, that speaks to a broken modern world.

Yes – Eliot’s poetry is difficult, but that is what makes him an excellent author for a LitSalon study. His poems contain vivid images and memorable language; they challenge us to wrestle with questions that still matter today.

JOINING DETAILS:

Five meeting study (on Zoom) led by Sean Forester

Sundays, 4.00-6.00 pm (UK), 3, 10, 17, 24 November & 1 December

£150 for five meetings, including opening notes and resources

Participants are welcome to use any edition of the poem as long as it has line numbers for reference.

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

3 November 2024 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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VIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

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10November 4:00 pm17November 4:00 pm24November 4:00 pm1December 4:00 pm

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thu21nov5:00 pmthu7:00 pmPlato's Symposium5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByKeith FosbrookType of studyClassical,Classics & PhilosophyDurationFour weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

It has often been said that Plato’s Symposium is the greatest prose work to survive from the Ancient Greek world. It portrays a group of intellectual men at a dinner party talking about sexual desire and the mysteries of love. Almost all of the men clearly have experience of same-sex relationships and are candid about what this means to them. As a result, the text has sometimes been thought of as a dangerous work, because, to use E M Forster’s ironic phrase, it is frank about the ‘unspeakable vice of the Greeks’. Nowadays, it is easier for us to appreciate the subtlety of Plato’s analysis of gender roles.

A major aspect of Plato’s perspective relates to his view of love as a kind of mystical force which is connected to our sense of beauty and plays an important role in moral education. This vision was very attractive to the Renaissance humanists, and has influenced Christian apologists over the thousands of years in which the book has been read.

For readers who are not particularly interested in philosophy, the text has appeal because Plato, unlike most philosophers, was a gifted writer. He offers us a variety of characters, all doing their best to account for the role of love in our lives. The modern world can boast many self-appointed experts here – including artists, philosophers, doctors, the therapeutic community, gurus, agony aunts and charismatic influencers to name but a few – and Plato presents us with a very similar kind of range, skilfully satirising them all. He finally presents a startling conclusion, when the person who is portrayed as having the deepest understanding turns out to be a woman . . .

There’s a great deal to ponder here, much of it very Greek (whatever that means), but much also that speaks to us with stunning directness across the millennia, and which may even lead you to question what philosophy is.

One final point: the text is riddled with irony, which is not always easy to spot if you are reading silently to yourself. There is much to be gained from reading The Symposium together as a group.

JOINING DETAILS:

Four-week study led by Keith Fosbrook

Thursdays, 5.00-7.00 pm, 21 & 28 November, 5 & 12 December

Please note that it is important we all use the same translation: The Symposium by Plato, Penguin Classics, translated by Christopher Gill, Penguin Classics, ISBN: 9780140449273

£120 for four meetings, to include introductory notes and resources

Organizer

Keith Fosbrook

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Time

21 November 2024 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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28November 5:00 pm5December 5:00 pm12December 5:00 pm

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December 2024

tue10dec6:30 pmtue8:30 pmPortals to Past Women's VoicesA British Library Workshop6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByThe British Library & London Literary SalonType of studyLiteratureDurationTwo hoursThe British Library, London NW1 2DB

January 2025

tue21jan11:30 amtue1:30 pmULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE -January 2025 (early)2025 EARLY STUDY11:30 am - 1:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationTwenty-one meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament:
with faith.”

—William Faulkner

*Aerial photograph of Dublin and the ‘Forty Foot’ by Paul Costello on Unsplash*

We offer an opportunity to read one of the greatest novels of all time in the company of others. Our work with this book will widen your perspective and deepen your experience of the power of language.

There is a strong argument for studying this huge and intimidating text – book list chart-topper of 100 greatest books of all time, critics’ darling, most lauded/least read, the book that many literary academics dedicate their lives to studying – but you will only know for yourself by diving in. I believe the best way to study it is with a group of hungry, curious readers who all contribute to evoking meaning, through their questions as well as their insights.

The good news: reading Ulysses is fun. And I don’t mean in a frustrating, overly-analytical see-how-much-you-know-way. The language is amazing – even when I don’t understand it. Perhaps, especially when I don’t understand it, because meaning sneaks in through more than my critical faculty. Meaning slides in through sound, through the lushness of the language, through the filmy and substantial images, and suddenly I find myself transported from a walk on a beach to a contemplation of the origins of man – thanks, James Joyce.

Any time spent studying Joyce leaves one a better reader – a broader thinker – even if all the references, repetitions, epiphanies and allusions are not immediately understood.

“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skilfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvellous work was immense.”

Ulysses Salon participant

JOINING DETAILS:

We are offering this study early in the day, from 11.30-1.30pm (UK time), comprising 21 meetings starting on Tuesday 21 January and finishing on Tuesday 17 June 2025, with four Sunday afternoon meetings (4.30-6.30pm on 2 February, 30 March, 18 May and 8 June) and NO meetings on 29 April, 6 and 13 May.

The total cost for the 21 meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £500

Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.
- The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

21 January 2025 11:30 am - 1:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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28January 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm2February 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm4February 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm11February 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm18February 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm25February 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm4March 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm11March 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm18March 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm25March 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm30March 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm1April 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm8April 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm15April 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm22April 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm18May 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm20May 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm27May 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm8June 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm17June 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm

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tue21jan5:30 pmtue7:30 pmULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE -January 2025 (later)2025 LATER STUDY5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationTwenty-one meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament:
with faith.”

—William Faulkner

Any time spent studying Joyce leaves one a better reader – a broader thinker – even if all the references, repetitions, epiphanies and allusions are not immediately understood.

“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skilfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvellous work was immense.”

Ulysses Salon participant

JOINING DETAILS:

We are offering this evening study from 5.30-7.30pm (UK time), comprising 21 meetings starting on Tuesday 21 January and finishing on Tuesday 17 June 2025, with four Sunday meetings (4.30-6.30pm on 2 February, 30 March, 18 May and 8 June) and NO meetings on 29 April, 6 and 13 May.

The total cost for the 21 meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £500

Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.
- The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

21 January 2025 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

28January 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm2February 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm4February 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm11February 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm18February 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm25February 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm4March 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm11March 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm18March 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm25March 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm30March 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm1April 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm8April 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm15April 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm22April 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm18May 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm20May 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm27May 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm8June 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm17June 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm

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April 2025

thu10apr(apr 10)4:00 pmsun13(apr 13)12:00 pmVirginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway - celebrate the centenary with us in Alfriston!4:00 pm - 12:00 pm (13)(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Karina JakubowiczType of studyLiterature,TravelDurationSix meetings over four daysWingrove House, High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TD

Event Details

This will be our third Virginia Woolf study in East Sussex, a county which in many ways became the writer’s spiritual home. What better way to celebrate the passing of 100 years since the first publication of Mrs Dalloway in 1925 than an in-depth study in her beloved Sussex countryside?

The centenary of the publication of Mrs Dalloway affords a perfect opportunity for us to approach the text with an invigorated exploration. This study will be enriching for those who have read and re-read this multi-layered text (including those who have previously studied it with the Salon) and readers who are new to the book. Karina and Toby will open up the many issues this subversive work considers, including sanity and madness, the treatment of mental illness and the limitations of medical techniques, tensions between social classes, queer relationships in a homophobic society, the sanctity of and threats to the private self . . . We will delve into the rich language and images that Woolf uses to unpack these and consider how this work speaks to us today.

We are planning a number of events to celebrate one hundred years of this book which opened up narrative form in an entirely new way and remains profoundly influential today. A viewing of The Hours in a London cinema followed by an audience discussion is one of the projects in the works, keep checking our newsletter for more announcements.

As one of the key members of the celebrated Bloomsbury Group, Woolf is often seen as a London writer, but she and her husband Leonard had an abiding love for the South Downs. Together they purchased Monk’s House near Rodmell in 1919 and used it as their writer’s retreat. Virginia wrote some of her major works there and the Sussex landscape was integral to her writing as she tried to capture what she saw as its unsurpassable beauty. There are a number of other Bloomsbury outposts in the area: in 1916 Virginia’s sister, Vanessa Bell, moved to Charleston Farmhouse with the painter Duncan Grant, while John Maynard Keynes and his wife Lydia Lopokova also settled locally.

She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.

Virginia Woolf’s writing hits emotion first — ‘what happens’ takes second place to ‘what feels’. The language is packed with subtlety, nuance and evocative images as Woolf probes the depths of intimate relationships. Come join us for this exploration of a warm June day in London: madness, aesthetics, the nature of love and intimacy, war, relationships across and between genders, Imperialism — all are prodded in this delicate and lyric work.

Mrs Dalloway makes an ideal study: her writing is challenging to read on one’s own, rich as it is in images, references and details that deliver a powerful emotional and intellectual impact. The study format encourages exploration by reading with a group of diverse and enquiring minds. Together we will work to understand Woolf’s incisive study of human personality — and use some of her contemporaries (Freud, Henri Bergson, Roger Fry) to help make sense of this new writing she creates. Here is Julia Briggs from her biographical study of Woolf through her works:

“Mrs. Dalloway is the story of a day in the lives of a man and woman who never meet — a society hostess who gives a party, and a shell-shocked soldier . . . What they have in common or why their stories are told in parallel, the reader must decide, for this is a modernist text, an open text, with no neat climax or final explanation, and what happens seems to shift as we read and reread. Woolf intended her experiment to bring the reader closer to everyday life, in all its confusion, mystery and uncertainly, rejecting the artificial structures and categories of Victorian fiction.”

JOINING DETAILS:

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Mrs Dalloway 2025’ as the subject line. To reserve a place please use the form below to pay an initial deposit of £20. Full payment may be made later by bank transfer (N.B. we will supply bank details which will be different from any you may have used on previous occasions).

Four-day in-person study facilitated by Toby Brothers and Karina Jakubowicz

Thursday 10 – Sunday 13 April 2024, Alfriston, East Sussex

This is an opportunity to enjoy the locale, including visiting Charleston House, Charleston in Lewes and Monk’s House, as well as joining with other readers in discussing Mrs Dalloway and its relationship to Woolf’s other works. We are in the process of investigating particular outings in the area based on what exhibits will be available at the time of our visit, these will be added to the schedule as we confirm the best options.

We are also in conversation with our fellow enthusiasts at Much Ado Books in Alfriston, who have created a great community that celebrates reading and the art of books in wonderful ways. Together we will offer an event celebrating Woolf and Mrs Dalloway during our stay there.

£480 for twelve hours (or more) of study in six meetings spread over four days, plus accommodation costs (please see details below)

We will stay at Wingrove House, a 19th century colonial-style country house hotel set in the beautiful and historic village of Alfriston, East Sussex in the South Downs National Park. We will be within easy reach of sites associated with Bloomsbury, making it the ideal choice for Woolf-related Salons. We expect the cost per night, including breakfast, to start at £182.50 per room (charges vary across a wide range) rising to a maximum of £257.50, but please check this with the hotel when booking, mentioning the London Literary Salon to receive a special 10% discount.

Please note that participants are responsible for booking their own accommodation and any insurance required.

Recommended edition: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; Oxford World’s Classics edition; ISBN-13: 978-0199536009

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

10 April 2025 4:00 pm - 13 April 2025 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

Wingrove House

High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TD

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Mrs Dalloway in Alfriston 2025

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July 2025

sat05jul(jul 5)3:00 pmfri11(jul 11)9:00 amHerman Melville's Moby Dick afloat!3:00 pm - 9:00 am (11)(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiterature,TravelDurationSix daysMallaig, Scotland

Event Details

A not-to-be-missed opportunity to complete reading one of the greatest books ever written in English – an extraordinary story of obsession and maritime adventure – over the course of a six-day voyage aboard a traditional sailing ship. Four online meetings will introduce Moby Dick, followed by six study sessions at sea on the Eda Frandsen, a lovingly restored and maintained gaff cutter, originally built in Denmark in 1938. This unique study will allow readers to complement their appreciation of Herman Melville’s text with a practical understanding and experience of the reality of seafaring life under sail.

“I am half way in the work . . . It will be a strange sort of book, tho’, I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho’ you might get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;—and to cool the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.”

Herman Melville

First published in 1851, Moby Dick ranks on almost any list as one of the greatest works in the English language. Its three famous opening words ‘Call me Ishmael . . .’ together with the image of the one-legged Captain Ahab in mad pursuit of the great white whale, have become cultural icons. This grand—and occasionally grandiose—adventure tale unites the many voices of Herman Melville in a mongrel mix of epic poetry, Shakespearean tragedy, encyclopaedic cataloguing, biblical oratory, and not a small dose of comedy. Melville presents an insightful study of obsession, madness and charismatic leadership that anticipates many of our contemporary conversations about democracy, cosmopolitanism, capitalism and environmentalism.

In 2019, celebration of the 200th year since Herman Melville’s birth initiated a particularly auspicious moment to study this great work, generating rich responses and reconsiderations of a truly amazing book. Philip Hoare (mentioned below as one of the curators of the Moby Dick Big Read project) writes on the contemporary importance of this work in this article Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: Six reasons why Moby Dick is the novel for our times.

“The book features gay marriage, hits out at slavery and imperialism and predicts the climate crisis – 200 years after the birth of its author, Herman Melville, it has never been more important.”

Philip Hoare

Together, artist Angela Cockayne and writer Philip Hoare convened and curated a unique whale symposium and exhibition at Peninsula Arts, the dedicated contemporary art space at Plymouth University. This grew into an extraordinary compilation of art and voices (Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and more) – the Moby Dick Big Read – to illuminate each chapter, inspiring and inspired by this vast book.

SALON DETAILS:

Four two-hour meetings online, followed by six-day study with six nights on board the Eda Frandsen from 3.00pm on Saturday 5 July 2025 to 9.00am on Friday 11 July 2025

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Salon Director

Recommended edition: Moby Dick (Norton Critical Edition, Third Edition 2018), by Herman Melville, edited by Herschel Parker; W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN-13: 978-0393285000

Cost for four online meetings and six-night voyage with study sessions, including opening notes will be £1,850 per person.

Participants will be responsible for arranging their own travel to and from our departure and end point, the port of Mallaig on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, as well as insurance to cover their trip.

We have just seven places available and we anticipate that this study is likely to be over-subscribed. If you are interested in joining, please email us using the subject line Moby Dick 2025 giving your name and a phone number on which we may contact you if necessary.

Please note that the voyage will involve sharing confined living and sleeping space while onboard. We do not require you to have nautical skills, but some time spent on sailing boats or camping would be useful so you know what to expect. We ask you to let us know in your email whether you have such experience and to confirm that you are in good physical health.

Even in summer it is possible that there may be rough seas and weather, so please consider carefully whether you are likely to be adversely affected by these conditions.

If we are able to offer you a place we will ask for an initial deposit of £100 per person, with the balance due by 31 December 2024.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

5 July 2025 3:00 pm - 11 July 2025 9:00 am(GMT+01:00)

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Location

Mallaig, Scotland

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