Formation | 1891 |
---|---|
Founder | Walter Besant |
Headquarters | London, England |
Location |
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President | John Walsh |
Website | www |
The Authors' Club is a British membership organisation established as a place where writers could meet and talk. It was founded by the novelist and critic Walter Besant in 1891. It is headquartered at the National Liberal Club. [1]
The Authors' Club was based for many years next door to its present site, on Whitehall Court, first moving into the National Liberal Club in 1966. After ten years there, in 1976 the Authors' Club joined forces with The Arts Club in Dover Street, London W1. In 2011 it moved to Blacks, a Grade 2* listed building by John Meard in Dean Street, Soho — a house that was once home to a club run by Samuel Johnson and Thomas Gainsborough — where it remained for three years. It has now returned to its old home in the National Liberal Club. The Club welcomes both men and women as members, and is open to all those "professionally engaged with literature".
It was at a dinner at the Authors’ Club that Oscar Wilde denounced the censorship of his play Salome . "Casting aside all his gifts of humour and irony the angry Irish poet poured out his sense of assault and battery committed upon himself and laid his spirit bare and bruised before us. Having finished he did not sit down again but swept from the company still overwhelmed by the weight of his wrongs." [2]
Three Poets Laureate — Alfred Austin, John Masefield and John Betjeman — have graced its ranks, while guest speakers included Émile Zola, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Winston Churchill, Bram Stoker, TS Eliot and Clement Attlee. Arthur Conan Doyle was for many years chairman, and often used to read his manuscripts to members prior to publication.
The first president of the Authors' Club was the novelist George Meredith; [3] he was followed by Thomas Hardy; [4] who was in turn succeeded by J. M. Barrie. [5] Subsequent presidents included the architectural historian Sir Banister Fletcher, the Anglo-Irish writer, dramatist and poet Lord Dunsany, Compton Mackenzie — author of Whisky Galore — and Laurence Meynell. The current president is the author and The Independent columnist John Walsh.
The Club holds literary lunches and dinners. It hosts three literary awards each year: the Authors' Club First Novel Award, the Dolman Best Travel Book Award, and the Banister Fletcher Award for the best book on art or architecture.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1893.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1885.
You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by a Mr Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1879.
The Signet Society of Harvard University was founded in 1870 by members of the class of 1871. The first president was Charles Joseph Bonaparte. It was, at first, dedicated to the production of literary work only, going so far as to exclude debate and even theatrical productions. According to The Harvard book
It seemed to the founders that there was room in the College world for another association that should devote itself more exclusively to literary work than is possible with large numbers. Accordingly, they confined the membership to a few, and required that new members shall be, so far as possible, "representative men," and that at least five should be in the first half of their class.
The Kenyon Review is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. The Review was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. The Review has published early works by generations of important writers, including Robert Penn Warren, Ford Madox Ford, Robert Lowell, Delmore Schwartz, Flannery O'Connor, Boris Pasternak, Bertolt Brecht, Peter Taylor, Dylan Thomas, Anthony Hecht, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, Derek Walcott, Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo, Woody Allen, Louise Erdrich, William Empson, Linda Gregg, Mark Van Doren, Kenneth Burke, and Ha Jin.
The Savage Club, founded in 1857, is a gentlemen's club in London, named after the poet, Richard Savage. Members are drawn from the fields of art, drama, law, literature, music or science.
Sir Banister Flight Fletcher was an English architect and architectural historian, as was his father, also named Banister Fletcher. They wrote the standard textbook A History of Architecture, which is also often referred to just as Banister Fletcher.
The National Liberal Club (NLC) is a London private members' club, open to both men and women. It was established by William Ewart Gladstone in 1882 to provide club facilities for Liberal Party campaigners among the newly enlarged electorate following the Third Reform Act in 1884, and was envisioned as a more accessible version of a traditional London club.
The University Pitt Club, popularly referred to as the Pitt Club, the UPC, or merely as Club, is a private members' club of the University of Cambridge. It was formerly male-only, and has admitted women since 2017.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Events from the year 1873 in the United Kingdom.
Hampstead Cemetery is a historic cemetery in West Hampstead, London, located at the upper extremity of the NW6 district. Despite the name, the cemetery is three-quarters of a mile from Hampstead, and bears a different postcode. It is jointly managed by Islington and Camden Cemetery Service and opens seven days a week, with closing times varying throughout the year.
The Lotos Club is a private social club in New York City. Founded primarily by a young group of writers and critics in 1870 as a gentlemen's club, it has since begun accepting women as members. Mark Twain, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs". The Club took its name from the poem "The Lotos-Eaters" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, which was then very popular. Lotos was thought to convey an idea of rest and harmony. Two lines from the poem were selected for the Club motto:
In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon
Banister Fletcher was an English architect and surveyor and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1886. He was extremely hardworking, and a prolific author besides many other interests. He is mainly remembered for A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (1895), written with his son Sir Banister Fletcher, which remains in print.
The American Review was a magazine of politics and literature established by the fascist publisher Seward Collins in 1933. There were 71 issues published, containing articles, editorials, notes, and reviews, before the journal ceased operations in October 1937.
Murray Fraser is Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL).