Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

Join the LitSalon on a literary pilgrimage with The Canterbury Tales. Imagine it is spring, the rain and mud behind us, nature bursts with new life. It is the season of love and pilgrimage. We are gathered around rustic wooden tables at the Tabard Inn, near London. Tomorrow we begin our walk (or ride if we can afford it) to St. Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury Cathedral. Our host suggests that each of us tell a story on the road.

What an astonishing variety of characters Chaucer gives us! We see the full range of medieval society, from the noble Knight to the bawdy Miller, the vitality of the Wife of Bath to the hypocrisy of the Prioress. The Canterbury Tales offers a masterful sense of irony throughout. For example, Chaucer presents himself as a character in the poem and the master poet tells a tale that is pure doggerel. Finally, the Host can bear it no longer: “Namoore of this, for Goddes dignitee.” Poor Chaucer protests to no avail.

To truly appreciate Chaucer’s poetry, one needs to delve into the Middle English. We will do that by first reading the General Prologue in the original. Following this initial five meeting study we will offer two further studies reading some of the most compelling tales in modern English (although those wishing to continue in Middle English are encouraged to do so) as set out below (to be listed on this website at a later date).

Part I: Knight’s Tale, Miller’s Tale, Pardoner’s Tale, Franklin’s Tale (16, 23 February & 2, 9 March)
Part II: Wife of Bath’s Tale, Shipman’s Tale, Nun’s Priest’s Tale (16, 23, 30 March)

If you have studied Joyce, Dante or Shakespeare with the LitSalon, why not challenge yourself with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest works in English literature?

JOINING DETAILS:

Five meeting study of the Prologue led by Sean Forester

Sundays, 4.00 – 6.00 pm (UK)

12, 19, 26 January & 2, 9 February 2025

Recommended text: Penguin Middle English edition, ISBN: 9780140422344 (Everyman and Riverside Chaucer are fine too). You may also find the interlinear translation of The Canterbury Tales on the Harvard University Chaucer website useful.

£150 for five meetings, including notes and resources.

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

2 February 2025 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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mon03feb1:00 pmmon3:00 pmMarcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time Volume IV: 'Sodom and Gomorrah' (early afternoon)1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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

After completing incredibly satisfying studies of Ulysses and Magic Mountain, we have turned to the next big mountain of Modernism, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. This is my seventh tour through the Search and each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments. This fourth volume, Sodom and Gomorrah, 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 anything about the world you live in, but you will be surprised. The group that has made it through the first three volumes in the last six months is lively and welcoming and we may have room for two or three more participants. If you have not read the first three 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.”

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, together with what our senses perceive, that moulds our consciousness.

I’d like to share with you part of Edmund White’s essay on this section from Andre Aciman’s collection The Proust Project:

“In these pages, Proust alludes to so many conflicting theories of homosexuality that they end up by casting doubt on one another — and on all such theories. In fact they suggest, finally, that only the conventions of a few cultures (but not all or even most cultures) determine the definition of normality; mere convention and nothing more absolute defines the status of homosexuality.

On the face of it nothing could seem further from the Proustian position. He starts out with the most extreme (and the most offensive) theory; that male homosexuals are inverts, i.e., women disguised as men. this whole initial disquisition on homosexuality is triggered by Marcel’s realization that Charlus’s face in repose is that of a woman since ‘he was one.’ This is the theory of ‘the soul of a woman enclosed in the body of a man’ first worked out by the German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1868.

Proust plays with the theories and homophobia of his time – and exposes societal hypocrisies in all forms.”

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Mondays, 1.00-3.00 pm (UK)

Thirteen-meeting study on Zoom starting on 27 January 2025 (N.B. no meetings on 3 March, 14 & 28 April, 5 & 12 May)

Recommended editions: Penguin, ISBN 9780141180342, Christopher Prendergast (Editor), John Sturrock (Translator) OR Vintage Classics, ISBN 9780099362517

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

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

3 February 2025 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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mon03feb3:30 pmmon5:30 pmMarcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time Volume IV: 'Sodom and Gomorrah' (for Second Timers)3:30 pm - 5:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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:

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 fourth 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, but you will be surprised.

I’d like to share with you part of Edmund White’s essay on this section from Andre Aciman’s collection The Proust Project:

“In these pages, Proust alludes to so many conflicting theories of homosexuality that they end up by casting doubt on one another — and on all such theories. In fact they suggest, finally, that only the conventions of a few cultures (but not all or even most cultures) determine the definition of normality; mere convention and nothing more absolute defines the status of homosexuality.

On the face of it nothing could seem further from the Proustian position. He starts out with the most extreme (and the most offensive) theory; that male homosexuals are inverts, i.e., women disguised as men. this whole initial disquisition on homosexuality is triggered by Marcel’s realization that Charlus’s face in repose is that of a woman since ‘he was one.’ This is the theory of ‘the soul of a woman enclosed in the body of a man’ first worked out by the German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1868.

Proust plays with the theories and homophobia of his time – and exposes societal hypocrisies in all forms.”

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Mondays, 3.30-5.30 pm (UK)

Thirteen-meeting study on Zoom starting on 27 January 2025 (N.B. no meetings on 3 March, 14 & 28 April, 5 & 12 May)

Recommended editions: Penguin, ISBN 9780141180342, Christopher Prendergast (Editor), John Sturrock (Translator) OR Vintage Classics, ISBN 9780099362517

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

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

3 February 2025 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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mon03feb6:00 pmmon8:00 pmVirginia Woolf's Orlando in eight objects6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByKarina JakubowiczType of studyLiteratureDurationEight meetings

Event Details

This study offers a rare opportunity to read Virginia Woolf’s famed mock-biography, Orlando, with Karina Jakubowicz, Woolf scholar and creator of The Virginia Woolf Podcast. Readers will be guided through the text step-by-step, explaining the desires, jealousies and rivalries behind what has been called ‘the longest love letter in the English language.’ There will be opportunities to discuss Woolf’s inspiration, Vita Sackville West, and to consider Woolf’s treatment of history, gender and the genre of biography.

To guide our readings, each week will feature one object drawn from the archives at Knole House or Sissinghurst Castle, or from Virginia Woolf’s own collections. Orlando is a story that spans 400 years, so each object will relate to the time period that we are looking at in the text itself. These pieces may simply serve as bookmarks to help readers navigate the text, or they may develop into talking points that furnish our understanding of the history that Woolf describes.

The eight-session study will begin with a lecture on the background to the text that can be booked as a standalone event or as part of the whole. The following seven sessions will be discussion-based and split according to the timetable below.

Session 1: Lecture

Session 2: Preface and first half of Chapter 1, up to the beginning of The Great Frost (p. 22)

Session 3: Read until the end of Chapter 1

Session 4: Chapter 2.

Session 5: Chapter 3

Session 6: Chapter 4

Session 7: Chapter 5

Session 8: Chapter 6

N.B. If you are interested in developing your critical or written skills, this can be done via a weekly written task with feedback at additional cost. For more information on this, please email us using the subject line ‘Orlando feedback’.

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight meeting study on Zoom led by Karina Jakubowicz

27 January to 17 March 2025

Mondays, 6.00-8.00 pm

£30 for the lecture alone, £240 for the whole course

Recommended edition: Oxford World’s Classics, edited by Michael H. Whitworth, ISBN: 9780199650736 (but any decent edition will work).

Organizer

Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

3 February 2025 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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mon03feb6:00 pmmon8:00 pmShakespeare's The Winter's Tale6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJane WymarkType of studyDramaDurationEight weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

“tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral.”

Thus, in Act 2 of Hamlet, Polonius excitedly describes the varied possible delights on offer from the approaching players. The Winter’s Tale, cited as the penultimate solo work in Shakespeare’s canon, goes a long way to covering all the forms of drama that Polonius enumerates.

The descriptive term that might arguably cover the entire list is ‘romance’, although in Shakespeare’s day the word did not apply to drama but to euphuistic prose works such as Pandosto by Robert Greene (which is the source material for this play), so Polonius can’t be blamed for the longer-winded ‘tragical-comical-historical-pastoral’. It was not until the 19th century that this play – along with the other three plays written at the end of Shakespeare’s career: Cymbeline, Pericles and The Tempest – were described as the Late Romances.

The compilers of the First Folio would not have classified The Winter’s Tale as a history play, but the power of monarchs and questions of succession are certainly among its themes. The action moves between the formal court of Sicilia and the bucolic rural setting of Bohemia, where shepherds (the word ‘pastoral’ derives from the latin pastor meaning shepherd) are very much present. The play contains tragedy in its first half and a good deal of comedy in its second.

“I would love to see a rep company do The Winter’s Tale and King Lear together, same actors same costumes, because I think Shakespeare wrote The Winter’s Tale to answer King Lear’s tragedy with hope”

Jane Smiley

The first half of the play moves towards an expectation of full blown tragedy, which is then altered by what is probably Shakespeare’s most famous Stage Direction: ‘Exit pursued by a bear’. As Professor Emma Smith explains, ‘the stage direction itself enacts the shock of the theatrical moment. Wait…there’s a bear? Where did that come from? But the real significance of this stage direction is the work it does as part of a cluster of dramaturgical, linguistic and structural effects in the middle of The Winter’s Tale. These effects have one concerted purpose: to wrest the play from the path of tragedy and to pluck a comedy from its darkest reaches.’

Ultimately, as one of the characters in the play, Paulina, exhorts:

“It is required,
You do awake your faith”.

The Winter’s Tale is a romance, a fairy story, a thing of hope . . .

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight week study on Zoom led by Jane Wymark

Monday 13 January – 3 March 2025, 6.00 – 8.00 pm (UK)

Recommended edition: The Arden Shakespeare, edited by John Pitcher, ISBN
9781903436356

£240 for eight meetings, including notes and background resources

Organizer

Jane Wymark

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Time

3 February 2025 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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24February 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm3March 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

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mon03feb6:00 pmmon8:00 pmMarcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time Volume IV: 'Sodom and Gomorrah' (evening)6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Ralph KleinmanType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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

I’d like to share with you part of Edmund White’s essay on this section from Andre Aciman’s collection The Proust Project:

“In these pages, Proust alludes to so many conflicting theories of homosexuality that they end up by casting doubt on one another — and on all such theories. In fact they suggest, finally, that only the conventions of a few cultures (but not all or even most cultures) determine the definition of normality; mere convention and nothing more absolute defines the status of homosexuality.

On the face of it nothing could seem further from the Proustian position. He starts out with the most extreme (and the most offensive) theory; that male homosexuals are inverts, i.e., women disguised as men. this whole initial disquisition on homosexuality is triggered by Marcel’s realization that Charlus’s face in repose is that of a woman since ‘he was one.’ This is the theory of ‘the soul of a woman enclosed in the body of a man’ first worked out by the German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1868.

Proust plays with the theories and homophobia of his time – and exposes societal hypocrisies in all forms.”

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Ralph Kleinman

Mondays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK)

Thirteen-meeting study on Zoom starting on 27 January 2025 (N.B. no meetings on 3 March, 14 & 28 April, 5 & 12 May)

Recommended editions: Penguin, ISBN 9780141180342, Christopher Prendergast (Editor), John Sturrock (Translator) OR Vintage Classics, ISBN 9780099362517

£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

3 February 2025 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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24February 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm10March 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm17March 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm24March 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm31March 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm7April 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm21April 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm19May 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm26May 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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tue04feb11:30 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*

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”.

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.

Here are comments from two Ulysses participants:

“I am thoroughly enjoying this journey. I feel wide open, exposed and receptive to new ways of thinking. What could be better than that? I enjoy the links with the classics and their current counterparts such as the agony of Sisyphus and the trials of thoughtful, surely sad, Martin Cunningham. And then Bloom with his many pockets reminded me in an amusing way of the Artful Dodger.

“The classes I have taken with the Literary Salon have been extraordinary.“

“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.“

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 23 February, 30 March, 18 May and 8 June) and NO meetings on 4 March, 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

4 February 2025 11:30 am - 1:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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tue04feb2:30 pmtue4:30 pmULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE - The Slow Read (section 9, Nausicaa and onwards . . .)THE 'SLOW READ' PART 92:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+00:00) 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

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 ninth section of the ‘Slow Read’ Ulysses study led by Toby Brothers and occasional guest facilitators from within the group, 13 two-hour sessions, Tuesdays from 2.30-4.30 pm (UK), starting on 14 January and ending on 22 April 2025.

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 £390.00, 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

4 February 2025 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL

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25February 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm11March 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm18March 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm25March 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm8April 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm15April 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm22April 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm

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tue04feb5:30 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.

Here are comments from two Ulysses participants:

“I am thoroughly enjoying this journey. I feel wide open, exposed and receptive to new ways of thinking. What could be better than that? I enjoy the links with the classics and their current counterparts such as the agony of Sisyphus and the trials of thoughtful, surely sad, Martin Cunningham. And then Bloom with his many pockets reminded me in an amusing way of the Artful Dodger.

“The classes I have taken with the Literary Salon have been extraordinary.“

“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.“

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 23 February, 30 March, 18 May and 8 June) and NO meetings on 4 March, 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

Learn More

Time

4 February 2025 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

23February 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm25February 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm11March 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm18March 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm25March 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm30March 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm1April 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm8April 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm15April 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm22April 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm18May 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm20May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm27May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm8June 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm17June 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

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tue04feb6:00 pmtue8:00 pmWilliam Blake, The Tyger6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByCaroline HammondType of studyPoetryVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

wed05feb5:00 pmwed7:00 pmTHE SOUND AND THE FURY BY WILLIAM FAULKNER5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & John AllemandType of studyLiteratureDurationFive weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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“I seemed to be lying neither asleep nor awake looking down a long corridor of gray half light where all stable things had become shadowy paradoxical all I had done shadows all I had felt suffered taking visible form antic and perverse mocking without relevance inherent themselves with the denial of the significance they should have affirmed thinking I was I was not who was not was not who.”

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

In William Faulkner’s first truly modernist work, he attempts to break through the confines of time and sequence to get at the essence of human nature. As Malcolm Bradbury explains, “Faulkner’s preoccupation with time has to do with the endless interlocking of personal and public histories and with the relation of the past to the lost, chaotic present.” The Sound and the Fury exposes a crumbling world through inference and allusion rather than through direct social critique. In the modernist method, Faulkner employs stream of consciousness and symbolism as connecting fibres against individual interior realities that must compete for authority.

This study will draw upon participants’ questions and ideas to shed light on this complex text. The book is richer when discussed, enabling the first time reader access to Faulkner’s vision, while those re-reading will find greater depth and resonance. Upon a first reading, the narratives appear jumbled and opaque; but as the pieces start to fit together, the complex and careful planning that Faulkner employs becomes apparent. Does the work expose the depths and hidden realms of the human spirit? This is what we must grapple with in our study.

JOINING DETAILS:

Led by Toby Brothers & John Allemand on Zoom

Wednesday evenings 5.00 – 7.00 pm (UK)

Five-meeting study 29 January – 26 February 2025

Recommended edition: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Norton Critical Edition (edited by Michael Gorra); ISBN-13: 978-0393912692

£200 for five sessions

Organizer

Toby Brothers & John Allemand

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5 February 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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26February 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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wed05feb5:00 pmwed7:00 pmThe Best of The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyDramaDurationSix meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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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 study 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.

This study launches a series on English Renaissance revenge tragedy. Each study will be completely self-contained, but participants are welcome (and encouraged!) to consider taking part in the entire series. Next up will be Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy beginning on 19 February.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six session study on Zoom led by Julie Sutherland

Wednesday, 8 January-12 February 2025, 5.00-7.00 pm (UK/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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5 February 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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wed05feb7:00 pmwed9:00 pmMadame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert7:00 pm - 9:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByRalph KleinmanType of studyLiteratureDurationSeven weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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“La Bovary, c’est moi.“

Gustave Flaubert

“Quand Mme Bovary parut, il y eut toute une révolution littéraire… Le code de l’art nouveau se trouvait écrit.“

“When Mme Bovary appeared, there was a whole literary revolution . . . the code of a new art was written.”

Emile Zola

Gustave Flaubert (1821 – 1880) is often referred to the first modern novelist and the inventor of literary realism. Madame Bovary arrived on the scene (trailing generally negative reviews and a lawsuit for offence against public morals and religion, of which Flaubert was acquitted) misunderstood and undervalued, but Flaubert knew that he had written a masterpiece. Time proved him correct.

Flaubert wrote precise fiction in reaction to idealism and romanticism. His goal was to present the world as it really was; there are no heroes in Madame Bovary. 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. Flaubert rejected the idea of artistic inspiration, and laboured like a mole for fifty-three months, testing every word for its aptness, and reading and rereading each sentence. But he wasn’t interested in merely creating the perfect form. He entered the emotional life of his characters, feeling his way through the novel. It was written in the early days of France’s industrial age, and Flaubert wanted literature to aid in the understanding of human nature, just as the natural sciences and social sciences did.

Although Madame Bovary is completely embedded in its time and place, I believe it has much to say about how we live now, and this is something we will explore in this study. There are many young girls today who are living completely in the world of internet influencers, lost in a dream disconnected from any reality. Will they emulate Emma Bovary in our own age as they attempt to navigate the world as it really is?

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven-meeting study led by Ralph Kleinman

Wednesdays, 7.00-9.00 pm UK (BST)

15 January to 26 February 2025

Recommended edition: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Lydia Davis, Penguin Classics, ISBN-13: 9780143106494 (to avoid confusion we ask that all participants use the same translation during study meetings)

£210 for seven meetings, to include opening notes and resources

Organizer

Ralph Kleinman

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5 February 2025 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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26February 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

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thu06feb5:00 pmthu7:00 pmBreakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Deborah LawunmiType of studyLiteratureDurationTwo meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

‘Give me an example,’ I said quietly. ‘Of something that means something. In your opinion.’
‘Wuthering Heights‘ she said without hesitation . . .
‘But that’s unreasonable. You’re talking about a work of genius.’
‘It was, wasn’t it? My sweet wild Cathy. God, I cried buckets. I saw it ten times.’
I said ‘Oh’ with recognizable relief, ‘oh’ with a shameful, rising inflection, ‘the movie.’

Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Ironically, this exchange between the unnamed narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and its unlikely heroine, Holly Golightly, prefigures the eclipse of Truman Capote’s original 1958 novella by the 1961 film. Whether you love or loathe the iconic movie starring Audrey Hepburn, the book is different – romantic but devoid of sentimentality – painting a complex, funny and poignant portrait of a 1940’s New York demi-monde.

Credited as the inventor of the ‘non-fiction novel’, Capote’s prose style in Breakfast at Tiffany’s prompted Norman Mailer to describe him as “the most perfect writer of my generation”. In our two-meeting study we will consider whether and why this judgement was justified, as we discuss how the author evokes character – most notably the unique and irrepressible Holly Golightly – and, in less than a hundred pages, immerses the reader in his plot.

Please note, the book contains some language and cultural tropes that are true to the period described but which some readers may find offensive today.

JOINING DETAILS:

Two-meeting study on Zoom led by Toby Brothers and Deborah Lawunmi

Thursday 30 January & 6 February, 5.00-7.00 pm UK (GMT)

Recommended edition: Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Penguin Modern Classics, ISBN: 9780141182797

£70 for two meetings to include opening notes and resources

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Deborah Lawunmi

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Time

6 February 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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wed12feb12:00 pmwed2:00 pmTodtnauberg: An EncounterA one-off Salon on Paul Celan's poem Todtnaurberg12:00 pm - 2:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByDesma Lawrence & Emilia SteuermanType of studyPhilosophy & Literature,PoetryDurationTwo hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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*Photo of Paul Celan, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

Arnica, eyebright, the
draft from the well with the
star-die on top,

in the
Hütte,

Thus begins Paul Celan’s poem Todtnauberg, setting the scene for his meeting with the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

This short poem is Celan’s record of his meeting at the philosopher’s Black Forest retreat in Todtnauberg in 1967. The two men were admirers of each other’s work, though on Celan’s side the admiration was fraught. Celan was a survivor of the European Shoah, carried out by the Third Reich, that claimed the life of both his parents. Living most of his life in France, Celan composed his poetry in German (his mother tongue and the language of his beloved mother), utilising the language that was also infused with the Reich, and which he called “the deathbringing speech” to work through the individual and collective trauma of the Shoah.

Heidegger, one of the monumental figures in European continental philosophy of the twentieth century, had a well known affiliation with the Nazi party which he never denied, redressed, or ever spoke about publicly. Their meeting, not surprisingly, attracted much scrutiny.

The poem, a chronicle of that meeting, closely follows the inscription that Celan left in Heidegger’s visitor’s book: “In the Hütte, with the view from the star in the well, with the hope of a coming word in the heart” (“Ins Hüttenbuch, mit dem Blick auf den Brunnenstern, mit einer Hoffnung auf eines kommendes Wort im Herzen”).

There are many ways to read, interpret and translate the poem, a poem about silence and the hope for words. We will read the poem together, many times, hoping ourselves to come to an understanding and interpretation of this very moving and concise work.

JOINING DETAILS:

Single meeting study led by Desma Lawrence and Emilia Steuerman

Wednesday 12 February 2025, 12.00 – 2.00 pm (UK)

£40 for single meeting with two facilitators

We will provide the German text with English Translation(s) and background notes on both Celan and Heidegger.

Organizer

Desma Lawrence & Emilia Steuerman

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12 February 2025 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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thu13feb6:30 pmthu8:30 pmMedieval & Renaissance poetry: exploring time through text6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByVivien KogutType of studyPoetry,The Renaissance through texts and objectsDurationFour meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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“This literature – which to us can sometimes seem difficult, exotic, highbrow, remote – is the product of a certain sensibility and a particular context. The idea of these sessions is to find little doors through which to step into that world and find ways to relate to it through the poetry and human artefacts as representations of that time.”

Vivien Kogut

The eighth century English monk Bede wrote a famous parable in which man’s life is compared to the flight of a sparrow crossing a warm hall on a dark, wet night: the sparrow comes “from winter into winter again”, his time in light and warmth lasting but the “blink of an eye”. Eight hundred years later, English poets believed they could trick all-devouring time through the power of words.

And today, another five centuries later, what does poetry tell us about time? And what different ‘times’ do we find in poetry? Can Medieval and Renaissance literature speak to our own perception of time? And what can objects tell us about our relationship with words across time?

This study invites readers to dive into poems and objects from the past in search of dialogues around time and literature. Focusing on the experience of reading poetry from the 10^th to the 17^th century we will try to rethink our notions of brevity and eternity, of rush and delay, of beginnings and endings.

Each of four sessions will focus on a different genre of poetry expressing ‘time’:

1. Old English elegies

“Thus this middle-earth droops and decays every single day;
and so a man cannot become wise, before he has weathered
his share of winters in this world”

Anonymous, The Wanderer

2. Old English riddles

“It was swift in its going:
Faster than birds it flew through the sky”

Anonymous, Riddle 51

3. Medieval ballads

“O’er his white bones, when they are bare,
The wind shall blow for evermore.“

Anonymous, The Two Corbies

4. Elizabethan poems

“Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.“

Edmund Spenser, Amoretti: LXXV

JOINING DETAILS:

Four meeting study on Zoom led by Vivien Kogut

Thursdays, 6.30 – 8.30 pm (UK)

13, 20, 27 February and 6 March

£120 for four meetings, including notes and resources

Organizer

Vivien Kogut

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Time

13 February 2025 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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27February 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm6March 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

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sun16feb4:00 pmsun6:00 pmThe Canterbury Tales: Six of the best tales4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized BySean ForesterType of studyLiteratureDurationSix meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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*Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (Janvier), Limbourg brothers, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

The LitSalon invites you to join us on a literary journey through The Canterbury Tales. Imagine it is spring, the rain and mud behind us, nature bursts with new life. It is the season of love and pilgrimage. We are gathered around rustic wooden tables at the Tabard Inn, near London. Tomorrow we begin our walk (or ride, if we can afford it) to St. Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury Cathedral. Our host suggests that each of us tell a story on the road.

What an astonishing variety of characters and stories Chaucer gives us! We see the full range of medieval society, from the noble Knight to the bawdy Miller, from the vitality of the Wife of Bath to the hypocrisy of the Pardoner. The Canterbury Tales offers a masterful sense of irony throughout. Join us as we read and discuss six of the best tales in modern English along with selected Middle English passages.

PLEASE NOTE: You are welcome to sign up for this study whether or not you have been part of the Canterbury Tales General Prologue group.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six meeting study: The Knight’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The Shipman’s Tale and The Pardoner’s Tale, led by Sean Forester (on Zoom)

Sundays, 4.00 – 6.00 pm (UK)

16 & 23 February, 2, 16, 23 & 30 March 2025

Recommended text: either the prose version by David Wright (ISBN-13: 978-0307743534) or the verse version by Nevill Coghill (ISBN-13: ‎978-0140424386). You may also find the interlinear translation of The Canterbury Tales on the Harvard University Chaucer website useful.

£180 for six meetings, including notes and resources.

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

16 February 2025 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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23February 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm2March 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm16March 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm23March 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm30March 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

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*The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

In 2025, ahead of our five-day travel study in Paris this autumn, we continue Sean Forester’s Looking at Pictures Salon with two new studies focusing on 19th century art in France. Walking through the halls of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay we see masterpieces by David and Ingres, Gericault and Delacroix, Courbet and Manet, Monet and Degas. What a fascinating range of styles and techniques! With the political and social tumult that characterised 19th century France, art movements followed fast upon one another: Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism. Participants will explore all of this together, discussing both the formal qualities and the emotions and ideas to be found in these remarkable works of art.

Part I: Art in France 1780-1870

Kenneth Clark was one of the great art critics of the last century, and we will take The Romantic Rebellion: Romantic Versus Classic Art as our text. The topics of our meetings will be:

1. David
2. Ingres, Raphael
3. Gericault
4. Delacroix, Goya
5. Turner, Corot, The Barbizon School
6. Millet, Courbet, Bastien-Lepage

N.B. We will also discuss Neoclassical and Romantic sculpture.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six-week study on Zoom led by Sean Forester

Thursdays, 4.00-6.00pm (UK)

20, 27 February, 6,13, 20, 27 March 2025

Reference text: The Romantic Rebellion: Romantic Versus Classic Art by Kenneth Clarke is currently out of print but second-hand copies are available to purchase online.

£180 for six meetings

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

20 February 2025 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

27February 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm6March 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm13March 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm20March 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm27March 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

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tue25feb5:30 pmtue7:30 pmDostoevsky's Crime and Punishment5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByKeith Fosbrook & Sarah SnoxallType of studyLiteratureDurationSeven meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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Widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature in any language, Crime and Punishment is a murder story in which we know the name of the murderer (Raskolnikov) right from the start. Even the title indicates that there will be some punishment in store and we are offered a straightforward reason for why he did it, but Dostoevsky’s tale takes us far beyond such a simple narrative, and it is in the complex vision which he unravels for us that the greatness of his novel is achieved.

Perhaps his most important decision as a writer is to tell the story from the murderer’s perspective. The character of the detective whose deciphering skills are often at the centre of such tales, is seen from the outside and may seem rather puzzling to us, whereas the inner psychological world of the murderer is exposed in astonishing detail. In Dostoevsky’s conversations with his fellow convicts in Siberia, he heard disturbing details of real life murders, and, it seems, wanted to include some of this acquired knowledge in his book. The result is a central character who has the power to intrigue, disturb and move us, despite being in the grip of dark, misguided ideas. From one angle, as readers, we may find him self-centred, bitter, repellent, even wicked, or in the grip of an evil spirit. On the other hand, we may discover a sensitive, impulsive and compassionate man of ideals, struggling with grief and poverty, and pursuing existential ideas around freedom and moral autonomy. We may of course oscillate in our judgment.

Dostoevsky’s complex skill is also evident in his creation of a chorus of vividly depicted characters, reacting in a variety of ways as they respond to Raskolnikov’s increasingly erratic behaviour. The resulting polyphonic effect in which, as suggested by the Russian critic Bakhtin, characters interact without a controlling authorial voice, reflects the fact that very general ideas have a place in the world of this novel, written in the 1860s when the liberalisation of Russian society went into reverse following an attempt on the life of the Tsar. Western political ideas and the growth of nihilism were seen to be in conflict with traditional Russian ideas, especially those concerning the role of the Tsar and the Russian Orthodox church. These conflicts provide a background to the events of the novel.

In the end, however, what is front of stage and stays with us is the extraordinarily vivid presentation of the characters, their confusions, their sense of being thrown from side to side by destabilising events. We may certainly include here the character of the city itself, St Petersburg, with its orderly neo-classical exteriors and dark complex interiors. It is no surprise that Dostoevsky’s exploration of the depths of the human psyche has been seen as a precursor to psychoanalysis, as well as to the literary experiments of modernism.

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven week study on Zoom led by Keith Fosbrook and Sarah Snoxall

Tuesdays, 5.30-7.30 pm (UK), 25 February to 8 April 2025

Recommended edition: Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Vintage Classics, ISBN: 9781784871970

£240 for seven meeting study

Organizer

Keith Fosbrook & Sarah Snoxall

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25 February 2025 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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4March 5:30 pm11March 5:30 pm18March 5:30 pm25March 5:30 pm1April 5:30 pm8April 5:30 pm

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wed26feb5:00 pmwed7:00 pmThomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyDramaDurationSeven meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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During the late reign of Queen Elizabeth I, an English writer penned a revenge tragedy for the public theatre, which unfolded like this:

Spurred on by the murder of a kinsman, a bereaved man, brought to the brink of madness by grief, seeks revenge on a royal. The information he receives urging him to exact vengeance is potentially legitimate, yet he is filled with doubt and is compelled to put it to the test. The grief-stricken man is then confronted by a terrifying vision about his delay. Growing more self-assured, he publicizes the nature of the crime through a play-within-a-play. The tragedy closes with the bloody and violent deaths of numerous characters.

Not Hamlet, this is Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

Kyd’s immense influence on English Renaissance drama cannot be overstated. To the playwrights already writing in the revenge tradition of the Roman Seneca (1^st century CE), Kyd added a flair and formula that was all his own and brought into sharp relief questions about life, death and justice that were pertinent to the age in which he wrote.

A box office blockbuster, The Spanish Tragedy was the third most performed play in 1590s London (after The Jew of Malta and the now-lost The Wise Men of West Chester). Its publication history was equally phenomenal. Going into at least 11 editions between 1592 and 1633, the revenge tragedy’s life in print outstripped any of Shakespeare’s plays.

In this 7-session study, participants will engage in an exhaustive reading of an edition based on the play’s earliest quarto (not dated). Pre-session resources will include the additions Ben Jonson was commissioned to write, which appeared in the 1602 edition of the play, and were a testament to The Spanish Tragedy’s ongoing popularity. Kyd himself did not live to see its astounding success.

As we examine this play together, we will consider a question central to the period’s revenge tragedies: How far must we go, what options do we have, when we must take the law into our own hands?

English Revenge Tragedy Series

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.”

Francis Bacon

The Spanish Tragedy is the second in a series of studies on English Renaissance revenge tragedy led by Julie Sutherland, which begins with Hamlet (8 January to 12 February 2025). Each study is completely self-contained, but participants are welcome (and encouraged!) to consider taking part in the entire series.

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven week study led by Julie Sutherland

Wednesdays, 5.00 -7.00 pm UK time

26 February-9 April 2025

£210 for seven meetings

Recommended edition: Five Revenge Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet, Antonio’s Revenge, The Tragedy of Hoffman, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Penguin Classics, ISBN: 9780141192277

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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26 February 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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fri28feb3:00 pmfri5:00 pmShakespeare's Sonnets - a slow read #13:00 pm - 5:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyPoetryDurationTwo hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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This is the first in a series of single session studies on Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Participants are welcome to join as few or many sessions as they please. The second session can be booked here.

*William Shakespeare Sonnets, title page 1609 edition, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

‘There is not a part of the writings of this Poet wherein is found in equal compass a greater number of exquisite feelings felicitously expressed.’

William Wordsworth on Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare’s sonnets have inspired, fascinated and disturbed readers for centuries. Full of mystery and imagination, they dazzle us even as they drive us mad: Who is the fair youth to whom so many of these sonnets are addressed? Who is the dark lady, the complex beloved of so many others? Who is the rival poet and what power does he possess? Are these lyric expressions of tortured love – among other themes – the key to understanding the mysterious life of Shakespeare, or are they not autobiographical at all?

Through close analysis and hands-on interpretive work, we will examine Shakespeare’s kaleidoscopic exploration of his speaker’s romantic and tortured feelings and experiences.

We are offering these self-contained, individual studies of Shakespeare’s sonnets in a workshop style setting. Over time we will cover all of the 154 sonnets that comprise Shakespeare’s celebrated sequence. Participants are invited to join as few or many sessions as they please.

JOINING DETAILS:

Session 1: Sonnets 1-4, facilitated by Julie Sutherland (on Zoom)

Friday 28 February, 3.00 – 5.00 pm (UK)

£25 for two-hour study

Before the session, Julie Sutherland will send links to online versions or attach specific copies for discussion. It is highly recommended that you print these off before joining this hands-on session. If you have a printed edition, please also have it ready so we can consider variations between texts. Have a notebook and pencil on hand as well!

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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28 February 2025 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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March 2025

wed05mar6:00 pmwed8:00 pmJohn Donne - A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByCaroline HammondType of studyPoetryDurationTwo hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

*St Lucy by Cosimo Roselli, Florence c. 1470, via Wikimedia Commons*

Born in 1572, the poet and Anglican cleric John Donne is now considered the major metaphysical poet of his time. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that studies being, identity and change, space and time, and the relationship between mind and matter. Extended metaphors known as conceits are one of the hallmarks of metaphysical poetry – unconventional, logically complex or surprising comparisons which challenge us intellectually rather than appeal to our emotions. John Donne employed conceits to explore the relationship between the sensory and the abstract, using the unlikeness of the two things compared to surprise and hold the reader’s attention. Donne often used scientific and technological advances of his day as a source for his conceits.

In A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day John Donne describes a speaker’s reaction to the death of a woman he loves. Referencing the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, he captures the overwhelming sense of bereavement in one of the most passionate depictions of love and loss in poetry.

While St Lucy’s Day can seem complex and difficult on first reading a close examination of the text reveals a poem of striking intensity and beauty.

JOINING DETAILS:

Single session study facilitated by Caroline Hammond

Wednesday 5 March, 6.00 – 8.00 pm

£30 to include background materials and opening notes

The poem can be found on the Poetry Foundation website here and in collections of John Donne’s work.

Organizer

Caroline Hammond

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Time

5 March 2025 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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wed12mar5:00 pmwed7:00 pmWilliam Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & John AllemandType of studyLiteratureDurationSeven meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

Absalom, Absalom! is arguably Faulkner’s most difficult, but also his most brilliant work. It presents the story of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, “who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him.”

Described as ‘hard-core Faulkner’, one review says: “The words and writing are critically acclaimed since your parents were in school. The examples of how a war can raze an entire culture’s edifice of identity are compelling, each person’s doom and curse being common among her kin and her countrymen: ghosts and sex and violence and cruelty, gut wrenching drama to challenge any soap opera or miniseries or movie. There are themes and studies aplenty within the nightmare realm of Faulkner’s masterpiece.”

Some feedback from participants in a previous study of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury:

“I am so happy to have had this opportunity to immerse myself in The Sound and the Fury in such a structured way and with such expert guidance! . . . While I probably would have found my way there eventually, the Salon gave me a container, a holding space and chorus of passionate and challenging voices with which to engage the difficult psychological, emotional, and artistic questions it raises.”

“You can get guidance elsewhere – with a discussion group you get more of a creative interaction and that’s what to me is important and exciting . . . you’re really involved in the reading so much more actively.”

“I always finish these sessions with insights I would never have reached on my own.”

“The support to read these difficult books is one of the things I come here for.”

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven-week study led by Toby Brothers & John Allemand on Zoom

Wednesdays, 5.00-7.00 pm (UK)

12 March – 23 April 2025

£280 for seven-week study

Recommended edition: Absalom, Absalom!, Vintage Classics, ISBN: 9780099475118

Organizer

Toby Brothers & John Allemand

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Time

12 March 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

19March 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm26March 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm2April 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm9April 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm16April 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm23April 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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wed19mar6:00 pmwed8:00 pmWallace Stevens - Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByCaroline HammondType of studyPoetryDurationTwo hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

*Photo by Derek Braithwaite on Unsplash*

“the best and most representative American poet of our time.”

Harold Bloom on Wallace Stevens

For most of his working life, Wallace Stevens was the Vice President of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, composing his poems on the way to and from the office and in the evenings. At the same time, he led something of a double life, with friends among the literary community in Greenwich village including Marianne Moore and E.E. Cummings.

His poetry in concerned with the transformative power of the imagination, with influences including the English Romantics and the French Symbolists. He is a master stylist, paying great attention to vocabulary and form. He also examines the notion of poetry itself, reflecting on its meaning and purpose as a reflection of objective reality. Published in 1923, Thirteen Way of Looking at a Blackbird explores these themes as well as delighting generations of readers with its beautiful language and images.

Over the course of two hours, we will work towards a deeper understanding of this exquisite poem through repeated readings, analysis and discussion.

JOINING DETAILS:

Single meeting study on Zoom, facilitated by Caroline Hammond

Wednesday 19 March, 6.00–8.00 pm (UK)

£30 to include background materials and opening notes

The poem can be found on the Poetry Foundation website here and in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0679726692

Organizer

Caroline Hammond

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Time

19 March 2025 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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thu27mar7:30 pmthu8:30 pmWhy Read Proust in 2025?A lecture & discussion led by Toby Brothers7:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationOne hourVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

Why is this seven volume French novel: A la recherche du temps perdu – in English Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time – regarded as such an iconic work? First published in French between 1913 and 1927, and in English translation between 1922 and 1931, why is it still so admired and respected? What does it offer to the twenty-first century reader in a world that has changed so much?

Who hasn’t gazed at this mountain of Modernism and felt daunted, or wondered what could possibly take any writer more than three thousand pages and six or seven volumes to say? In January 2025 I will start leading the ninth group of readers with whom I have explored this work. For myself, I have to report that I always find something new when reading Proust and that my time in his writing has transformed the way I understand the interplay of memory, imagination, intellect and sensory experience.

In this lecture I will explain why I believe that reading Proust is genuinely life-changing and an unmissable rite of passage. Curious readers are welcome to join me!

A comment from a previous Proust participant:

” . . . brilliant, frustrating, revealing, engrossing and I am part of what has become a special community of equally frustrated and hugely encouraging students of different ages and backgrounds. Guided by Toby we are full of insights and laughter. We read aloud and discuss the week’s reading. Time flies, brains feel rejuvenated and the weeks go by much more speedily with the Salon to look forward to. Encouragement is key, there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ opinions. In fact the best thing about the Salon is that we all feel valued. What’s not to love!”

JOINING DETAILS:

One-off lecture and discussion on Zoom led by Toby Brothers

7.30 -8.30 pm, 27 March 2025

£15.00 (redeemable against the cost of joining our study of Volume 1: The Way by Swann’s starting in September 2025)

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

27 March 2025 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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fri28mar6:00 pmfri8:00 pmShakespeare's Sonnets - a slow read #26:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyPoetryDurationTwo hoursVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

This is the second in a series of single session studies on Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Participants are welcome to join as few or many sessions as they please.

‘There is not a part of the writings of this Poet wherein is found in equal compass a greater number of exquisite feelings felicitously expressed.’

William Wordsworth on Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Through close analysis and hands-on interpretive work, we will examine Shakespeare’s kaleidoscopic exploration of his speaker’s romantic and tortured feelings and experiences.

JOINING DETAILS:

Session 2: Sonnets 5-8, facilitated by Julie Sutherland (on Zoom)

Friday 28 March, 6.00 – 8.00 pm (UK) please note that the UK remains on GMT until 30 March but in North America clocks will already have moved forward by one hour

£25 for two-hour study

Before the session, Julie Sutherland will send links to online versions or attach specific copies for discussion. It is highly recommended that you print these off before joining this hands-on session. If you have a printed edition, please also have it ready so we can consider variations between texts. Have a notebook and pencil on hand as well!

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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Time

28 March 2025 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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April 2025

thu03apr(apr 3)4:00 pmsun06(apr 6)12:00 pmVirginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway - celebrate the centenary with us in Alfriston! #24:00 pm - 12:00 pm (6)(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

In response to demand for our previously announced third Virginia Woolf study in Alfriston, devised to celebrate the passing of 100 years since the first publication of Mrs Dalloway in 1925, we are offering a second event in Woolf’s beloved Sussex countryside. Where better to mark the centenary of this ground-breaking book than in the county that in many ways became the writer’s spiritual home?

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 #2’ 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 3 – Sunday 6 April 2025, 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

3 April 2025 4:00 pm - 6 April 2025 12:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

Wingrove House

High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TD

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Mrs Dalloway, 4 meetings, May-June 2022

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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?

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.

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 2025, 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

Learn More

Time

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

View in my time

Location

Wingrove House

High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TD

Other Events

Book this Salon

Mrs Dalloway, 4 meetings, May-June 2022

All places are booked

mon28apr(apr 28)5:00 pmmon05may(may 5)12:00 pmAgistri 2025: Homer's Odyssey on the Greek island of Agistri(April 28) 5:00 pm - (May 5) 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane WymarkType of studyClassical,TravelDurationSeven daysAgistri, Greece

Event Details

In 2025 we will return for our fifth visit to the enchanting island of Agistri on the Saronic Gulf. This year we will study Homer’s Odyssey and Euripides’ Trojan Women in a location that evokes the landscape and environment in which these extraordinary and enduring works were written. Join us if you can!

“Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy.
and where he went, and who he met, the pain
he suffered on the storms at sea, and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home.”

The opening lines of Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey

In 2019 the London Literary Salon travelled to Agistri to read The Odyssey and in 2024 we completed the Homeric cycle by reading The Iliad on the island, using Emily Wilson’s powerful contemporary translations for both studies. In 2025 we will return to Agistri to revisit The Odyssey in all its vivid and gripping glory.

Our Odyssey study will use Homer’s epic poem to consider closely the guest-host relationship, the defining struggle of humans against overwhelming nature, the struggle to know ourselves in foreign spaces, our understanding of the heroic and the role of myth and epic in lived experience.

Actor Jane Wymark and poet Caroline Hammond will join Salon Director Toby Brothers in leading this week-long study, sharing their insights into the spoken word, metre and translation and how to read out loud to greater effect. In an era where the epic poem is in eclipse (the novel and film having taken over as the preferred vehicles for complex narratives) we will explore aspects of the Odyssey as a work in the oral tradition.

Our chosen venue is a small family-run hotel that is easily accessible (just one hour by ferry from Athens) on the beautiful and quiet island of Agistri. It provides the perfect setting for our study, offering a relaxing atmosphere, excellent food and opportunities for additional cultural and recreational activities.

STUDY DETAILS:

Seven-day study of Homer’s Odyssey on the island of Agistri: 28 April – 5 May 2025.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Jane Wymark and Caroline Hammond.

Cost: £700 for the Salon study, to include preparatory meeting in April (via Zoom, date to be confirmed), background materials and opening notes. Opening notes will be sent after registration.

The study programme will run for four to five hours per day for five days, with one day left open and travel at each end. There will be time for other optional activities including kayaking adventures, a trip to the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, or pure relaxation.

Before you arrive on Agistri we will ask you to read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey (WW Norton & Co, ISBN-10: 0393356256; ISBN-13: 978-0393356250). Ian McKellen’s audio reading of Robert Fagles’ translation is also a great way to experience The Odyssey.

Payment: we understand that you may not want to pay the entire charge at once, so we ask for an initial (non-returnable) deposit of £20 on registration followed by £180 within 28 days and the balance of £500 by 31 January 2025.

Refunds: please note that any refunds will be entirely at the discretion of the London Literary Salon, dependent on our ability to fill the place, and will be subject to a charge to cover our administration costs.

BOOKING

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Agistri 2025 – Odyssey’ as the subject line. Payment will be by bank transfer (N.B. we will supply bank details). If the study sells out early we will maintain a waiting list as we do sometimes find that people have to withdraw for reasons beyond their control.

ADDITIONAL COSTS

Room and half board (breakfast and dinner each day) will be arranged by each participant with the hotel and paid for directly to them. A deposit to cover two nights accommodation will be required by the hotel. We will send you full contact details for payment on registration. We have set out the anticipated charges below, but these may be subject to change at the time of booking at the discretion of the hotel.

Accommodation prices per night at the hotel – Rosy’s Little Village – estimated on the basis of figures available in October 2024:

Single – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per day

Double – €87 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Triple – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for two people – €97 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for three people – €107 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Please consider sharing accommodation with another participant as this helps us to ensure everyone can stay on site; double and triple rooms offer split levels and so allow sharers a significant degree of privacy.

Flights to Athens: when booking please make sure you can arrive in Piraeus by 15.00 local time on the first day of your study to catch the ferry. We will not be meeting formally on the final day of each study, so you have choices about your return (ferries are frequent and the travel time to Piraeus is one hour).

Ferry to Agistri: normally around €14 each way, but may be €30 for arrival if the group chooses to use a private water taxi.

Incidental expenses: drinks, lunches, extra trips etc.

Insurance: we hope this will be entirely redundant, but we do ask you to arrange your own travel and health insurance to protect you in case of anything untoward happening. We will ask you for details of the insurance provider and reference number, as well as your mobile phone number and details of next of kin to add to our (confidential) records for use during the study.

Organizer

Toby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane Wymark

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Time

28 April 2025 5:00 pm - 5 May 2025 12:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

Agistri, Greece

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wed30apr5:30 pmwed7:30 pmShirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByNicky von FraunhoferType of studyLiteratureDurationFour meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

*Photo by Samuel Bryngelsson on Unsplash*

‘We live over in the town, six miles away.’

‘Yes,’ Eleanor said, remembering Hillsdale.

‘So, there won’t be anyone around if you need help.’

‘I understand.’

‘We couldn’t even hear you, in the night.’

‘I don’t suppose-’

‘No one could. No one lives any nearer than town. No one else will come any nearer than that.’

‘I know,’ Eleanor said tiredly.

‘In the night,’ Mrs Dudley said, and smiled outright.

For Eleanor Vance, frustrated and bored with her city life, Hill House holds the promise of change. She embraces the opportunity to embark on Dr Montague’s oddly vague scientific project located in an isolated countryside house. His experiment promises a new start and a chance to put behind her memories of nursing an invalid mother. Eleanor is delighted to make friends with the round, rosy and bearded Dr Montague, and her fellow invitees, the sophisticated and cat-like Theo, and facetious heir to the estate, Luke. And yet, Eleaner soon realises that it is the house itself, which is central to their encounters, a building which broods and presses them down with the quiet weight of its own history.

Shirley Jackson’s Hill House, with its quirky, off-kilter architecture and uneasy relationships shows plenty of potential to unbalance the unwary. Acclaimed by Stephen King as a ‘nearly perfect haunted-house tale,’ and adapted for film in 1963 and 1999, Shirley Jackson’s gothic tale continues to be a classic text that is both entertaining and intriguing. In an era dominated by atheism, secularism and science, why is it that we are still drawn to the uncanny and the ghostly? What is it about gothic mansions filled with dark recesses that draws us in and fascinates us with their ghostly reminders of wronged lives? Could it be that, for all our modern sophistication, none of us fully shake our dread of unquiet places where we fear to tread alone?

Over four sessions (covering approximately 60 pages per session) we will follow the events at Hill House to their dramatic conclusion and consider wider aspects of gothic literature. Will you linger on the threshold wondering whether to go back? Or might you join the salon to find out what happens in Hill House after dark, when no one will come near?

JOINING DETAILS:

Four meeting study on Zoom led by Nicky von Fraunhofer

Wednesday 30 April to 21 May, 5.30 – 7.30 pm (UK)

£140 to include opening notes and resources

Recommended text The Haunting of Hill House, Penguin Modern Classics: ISBN 978-0141191447

Organizer

Nicky von Fraunhofer

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Time

30 April 2025 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Other Events

Future Event Times in this Repeating Event Series

7May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm14May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm21May 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Book this Salon

Enquire before you buy

May 2025

wed07may(may 7)5:00 pmwed14(may 14)12:00 pmAgistri 2025: Euripides' Trojan Women on the Greek island of Agistri5:00 pm - 12:00 pm (14)(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane WymarkType of studyClassical,TravelDurationSeven daysAgistri, Greece

Event Details

“The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.”

Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue

When, in 458 BC, The Oresteia of Aeschylus – a trilogy in which the climax of the third play, The Eumenides, upheld the Athenian traditions of liberality and the rule of law – triumphed at the Dionysia, it must have been exhilarating for the audience to witness the exaltation of their own city. Much had changed just forty-three years later when Euripides’ Trojan Women was performed and won the second prize in the contest.

For the last ten of those years Athens had waged the hugely destructive Peloponnesian War against Sparta and several Greek cities had suffered a fate not unlike that of Troy. Although a truce with Sparta was just about holding, the Athenians were still trying to expand their martial capability through colonisation. In the summer of 416 BC, less than a year before Euripides’ play appeared, Athens laid siege to the small but wealthy island of Melos in the South Aegean (which had already donated much to the war effort but drew the line at being occupied and exploited) and, once the Melians were defeated, massacred its male population and enslaved the women and children.

The audience at the theatre of Dionysus in Athens would have included veterans of the Melian campaign, and it speaks for the Greek respect for theatre and artistic freedom that performance of the play was permitted at all. That openness is not always matched by our own society today: In 1980 A Short Sharp Shock! a play by Howard Brenton and Tony Howard satirising British politics of the time led to outrage, questions in the House of Commons and an attempt to close down the Royal Court Theatre. Four years after the UK’s 1982 Falklands War, a verse play by Steven Berkoff, Sink the Belgrano!, caused a similarly huge controversy.

During our 2023 visit to Agistri we considered the theatrical representation of the Trojan War and its aftermath in The Oresteia. In 2025 we will embark on the study of Trojan Women with Salon Director Toby Brothers, actor Jane Wymark and poet Caroline Donnelly bringing their considerable talents and energy to exploring the dramatic possibilities of the text and the poetry contained within this phenomenal work.

STUDY DETAILS:

Seven-day study of Euripides’ Trojan Women on the island of Agistri: 7 – 14 May 2025.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Jane Wymark and Caroline Hammond.

Cost: £700 for the Salon study, to include preparatory meeting in April (via Zoom, date to be confirmed), background materials and opening notes. Opening notes will be sent after registration.

The study programme will run for four to five hours per day for five days, with one day left open and travel at each end. There will be time for other optional activities including kayaking adventures, a trip to the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, or pure relaxation.

We will ask you to read the recommended translation of Trojan Women by Emily Wilson contained in this volume: Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Modern Library Classics – Paperback, ISBN 978-0812983098) before arriving on Agistri.

Payment: we understand that you may not want to pay the entire charge at once, so we ask for an initial (non-returnable) deposit of £20 on registration followed by £180 within 28 days and the balance of £500 by 31 January 2025.

Refunds: please note that any refunds will be entirely at the discretion of the London Literary Salon, dependent on our ability to fill the place, and will be subject to a charge to cover our administration costs.

BOOKING

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Agistri 2025 – Trojan Women’ as the subject line. Payment will be by bank transfer (N.B. we will supply bank details). If the study sells out early we will maintain a waiting list as we do sometimes find that people have to withdraw for reasons beyond their control.

ADDITIONAL COSTS

Accommodation prices per night at the hotel – Rosy’s Little Village – estimated on the basis of figures available in October 2024:

Single – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €50 per day

Double – €87 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Triple – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for two people – €97 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for three people – €107 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for four people – €120 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Please consider sharing accommodation with another participant as this helps us to ensure everyone can stay on site; double and triple rooms offer split levels and so allow a significant degree of privacy to sharers.

Flights to Athens: when booking please make sure you can arrive in Piraeus by 15.00 local time on the first day of your study to catch the ferry. We will not be meeting formally on the final day of each study, so you will have choices about your return (ferries are frequent and the travel time to Piraeus is one hour).

Ferry to Agistri: normally around €14 each way, but may be €30 for arrival if the group chooses to use a private water taxi.

Incidental expenses: drinks, lunches, extra trips etc.

Organizer

Toby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane Wymark

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Time

7 May 2025 5:00 pm - 14 May 2025 12:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Agistri, Greece

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*Olympia by Edouard Manet, Musée d’Orsay, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

Part II: Art in France 1870-1900

The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King gives a vivid picture of the Belle Epoque and the personalities of two very different artists: Ernest Meissonier and Edouard Manet. The topics of our meetings will be as follows:

1. Historical painting, Meissonier
2. Realism and Naturalism
3. Monet and Impressionism
4. Manet, Degas
5. Rodin and late 19th century sculpture
6. Women artists in Paris

JOINING DETAILS:

Six-week study on Zoom led by Sean Forester

Thursdays, 4.00-6.00 pm (UK)

15, 22, 29 May, 12,19, 26 June 2025 (N.B. no meeting on 5 June)

Reference text: The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King, ISBN-13‏: ‎ 978-1844134076

£180 for six meetings

Organizer

Sean Forester

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Time

15 May 2025 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

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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

Four online meetings (on Zoom) Wednesdays 5.30-7.30 pm (UK), 28 May, 4, 11, 18 June 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. 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.

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+00:00)

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Location

Mallaig, Scotland

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September 2025

wed10sep(sep 10)2:30 pmsun14(sep 14)1:00 pmProust & the Belle Époque - art & literature in Paris2:30 pm - 1:00 pm (14)(GMT+02:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Sean ForesterType of studyArt & literature,TravelDurationFive daysParis

Event Details

For September 2025, the London Literary Salon invites you to join a five-day study visiting the Paris of Proust and some of the most extraordinary visual artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Beauty, visual art and sense of place are central to A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, and the novel truly comes alive in the author’s beloved Paris. This unique study will be most suitable for those who have read some or all of Proust, but if you are keen to join this trip and have not yet read any of the novel please contact us to discuss. Toby Brothers will lead our literary discussions and Sean Forester will guide the group as we look closely at painting and sculpture. From Classicism and Romanticism, to Realism, Impressionism and Art Nouveau, the art of 19th and early 20th century France has something for everyone!

Ahead of our visit to Paris (and great preparation for anyone considering joining us) Sean is leading two online studies on Art in France: Part 1 begins on 20 February, with Part 2 following in May (both can be booked separately). Toby will offer a special lecture and discussion Why Read Proust in 2025? and her next In Search of Lost Time study begins in September.

*A Windy Day on the Pont des Arts, Jean Béraud, public domain via Wikimedia Commons*

*Portrait of Carolus-Duran, John Singer Sargent, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

*The Floor Planers, Gustave Caillebotte, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

We will be based at the very lovely Proust-dedicated Hôtel Littéraire de Swann, where we have negotiated special rates for participants.

Please note that the hotel cost, travel and transport, food and drink are NOT included in the Salon price of £600 for the five-day visit.

In addition to discussions of the work of Marcel Proust in relation to Paris, we will have two sessions on French art as well as visits to the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée Rodin and Musée Carnavalet. We will keep you updated as we finalise our day-to-day programme, but we hope also to include either a visit to the Musée de l’Orangerie or a tour of the Opéra Garnier, and we will try to include a walk in the Jardin du Luxembourg and even a drawing lesson en plein air before we leave.

*Participants in our 2023 Proust study in Paris*

To get a flavour of previous Salon visits to Paris, read Sue Fox’s blog post about Proust in Paris with Toby in 2023!

JOINING DETAILS:

Five-day study in Paris led by Toby Brothers and Sean Forester

10-14 September 2025, £600.00 for the study and background notes

Additional costs: participants are responsible for arranging and paying for their own travel and insurance, accommodation, food and drink. We have negotiated special rates at the hotel for Salon clients and we will arrange group bookings for entrance to museums and galleries which will be charged as extras before departure (at reduced rates wherever possible).

Some knowledge of the work of Marcel Proust is required to enjoy the literary discussions, please email us if you are interested in joining but have not yet read In Search of Lost Time.

Although not required, Sean Forester’s two-part Looking at Pictures: Art in France (Part 1 and Part 2) provides an invaluable introduction to this travel study.

Payment: we understand that you may not want to pay the entire charge at once, so we ask for an initial (non-returnable) deposit of £50 on registration, followed by the balance of £550 by 31 May 2025.

Refunds: please note that any refunds will be entirely at the discretion of the London Literary Salon, dependent on our ability to fill the place, and will be subject to a charge to cover our administration costs.

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Sean Forester

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Time

10 September 2025 2:30 pm - 14 September 2025 1:00 pm(GMT+01:00)

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Location

Paris

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Deposit against full price of £600 (£550 balance payable by 31 May 2025)

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wed17sep3:00 pmwed5:00 pmVolume 1 of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time: The Way by Swann's (afternoon)3:00 pm - 5:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationNine weeksVIRTUAL - 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

Who hasn’t gazed at this mountain of Modernism and felt daunted, or wondered what could possibly take any writer more than three thousand pages and six or seven volumes to say?

In our study, we enter the Proustian universe through the first volume: this will give readers a glimpse of the breadth and purpose of this carefully constructed creation that Proust uses to reflect on the workings of the mind, memory, imagination and the role of art. Harold Bloom cites In Search of Lost Time as ‘the greatest literary work of comic jealousy’. Proust uses social critique, abundant detail, lyric descriptions and philosophical query to portray a sensitive young mind engaging with the world and human relationships. The narrator’s incredible vision and unique voice develop over the course of the volumes. By studying this first volume, you will acquire the tools needed to complete the epic on your own if you are inspired, or continue with the Salon study if this is working for you. We continue to ask, could there be a better moment in history to go in search of Lost Time?

This will be the ninth troop I have led through Proust’s massive work. Please be assured that registering for the first volume does NOT commit you to continuing, but even though completing the entire cycle with us involves two and a half years of reading together, most people do choose to stay the course (some might say become addicted) and find the work immensely satisfying.

For myself, I would say simply that my time in Proust has changed the way I understand my relationship to the world of art and experience. 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.”

SALON DETAILS

Nine week virtual study starting 17 September (N.B. no meetings on 1 and 8 October), for first time readers of In Search of Lost Time. Please note that we sometimes offer a ‘second time around’ study for those who have already completed their first encounter with Proust’s work, please email us if this is of interest.

Wednesdays 3.00 pm-5.00 pm (UK)

Facilitated by Salon Director, Toby Brothers

Cost £300 (includes notes and critical resources)

Recommended edition: In Search of Lost Time: Volume I, The Way By Swann’s, by Marcel Proust, translated by Lydia Davis, Penguin Modern Classics, ISBN 978-0141180311

A little background and encouragement:

Proust’s writing requires a wide-awake mind as the reader is drawn into dissecting the world as it is experienced and the way our minds decorate and create memories, values and paradigms of understanding. This sounds so dry, but the wonder is how deeply sensual Proust’s work is — he is most concerned with the experience of intimacy and how this dance between two beings is fractured and reimagined through the lens of perception.

Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although we may be 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.

A comment from a previous Proust participant:

” . . . brilliant, frustrating, revealing, engrossing and I am part of what has become a special community of equally frustrated and hugely encouraging students of different ages and backgrounds. Guided by Toby we are full of insights and laughter. We read aloud and discuss the week’s reading. Time flies, brains feel rejuvenated and the weeks go by much more speedily with the Salon to look forward to. Encouragement is key, there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ opinions. In fact the best thing about the Salon is that we all feel valued. What’s not to love!”

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

17 September 2025 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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24September 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm15October 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm22October 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm29October 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm5November 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm12November 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm19November 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm26November 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

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wed17sep5:30 pmwed7:30 pmVolume 1 of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time: The Way by Swann's (evening)5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationNine weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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

Who hasn’t gazed at this mountain of Modernism and felt daunted, or wondered what could possibly take any writer more than three thousand pages and six or seven volumes to say?

SALON DETAILS

Nine week virtual study starting 17 September (N.B. no meetings on 1 and 8 October) for first time readers of In Search of Lost Time. Please note that we sometimes offer a ‘second time around’ study for those who have already completed their first encounter with Proust’s work, please email us if this is of interest.

Wednesdays 5.30 pm-7.30 pm (UK)

Facilitated by Salon Director, Toby Brothers

Cost £300 (includes notes and critical resources)

Recommended edition: In Search of Lost Time: Volume I, The Way By Swann’s, by Marcel Proust, translated by Lydia Davis, Penguin Modern Classics, ISBN 978-0141180311

A little background and encouragement:

A comment from a previous Proust participant:

” . . . brilliant, frustrating, revealing, engrossing and I am part of what has become a special community of equally frustrated and hugely encouraging students of different ages and backgrounds. Guided by Toby we are full of insights and laughter. We read aloud and discuss the week’s reading. Time flies, brains feel rejuvenated and the weeks go by much more speedily with the Salon to look forward to. Encouragement is key, there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ opinions. In fact the best thing about the Salon is that we all feel valued. What’s not to love!”

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

Learn More

Time

17 September 2025 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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

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

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

—William Faulkner

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

—William Faulkner