Authors' Club
Encyclopedia
The Authors' Club is a British membership organization
established as a place where writers could meet and talk. It was founded by the novelist and critic Walter Besant
in 1891.
The Authors' Club was based for many years at Whitehall Court
, moving to the National Liberal Club
in 1966. In 1976 the Authors' Club joined forces with The Arts Club
in Dover Street, London W1. Since 2011 it has been based at Blacks, a Grade 2* listed building by John Meard in Dean St, Soho, that was once home to a club run by Samuel Johnson and Thomas Gainsborough. 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.'
Three Poet Laureates — Alfred Austin
, John Masefield
and John Betjeman
— have graced its ranks, while guest speakers included Emile 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
; he was followed by Thomas Hardy
; who was in turn succeeded by JM Barrie. 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 Independent columnist John Walsh.
, and the Banister Fletcher
Award for the best book on art or architecture.
Gentlemen's club
A gentlemen's club is a members-only private club of a type originally set up by and for British upper class men in the eighteenth century, and popularised by English upper-middle class men and women in the late nineteenth century. Today, some are more open about the gender and social status of...
established as a place where writers could meet and talk. It was founded by the novelist and critic Walter Besant
Walter Besant
Sir Walter Besant , was a novelist and historian who lived largely in London.His sister-in-law was Annie Besant.-Biography:...
in 1891.
The Authors' Club was based for many years at Whitehall Court
Whitehall Court
Whitehall Court in London, England is one contiguous building but consists of two separate constructions; the end occupied by the National Liberal Club was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, the major part was designed by Archer & Green.The Royal Horseguards Hotel, owned by Thistle Hotels, covers 1 &...
, moving to the National Liberal Club
National Liberal Club
The National Liberal Club, known to its members as the NLC, is a London gentlemen's club, now also open to women, which was established by William Ewart Gladstone in 1882 for the purpose of providing club facilities for Liberal Party campaigners among the newly-enlarged electorate after the Third...
in 1966. In 1976 the Authors' Club joined forces with The Arts Club
The Arts Club
The Arts Club is a London private members club founded in 1863 by, amongst others, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and Lord Leighton in Dover Street, Mayfair, London, England...
in Dover Street, London W1. Since 2011 it has been based at Blacks, a Grade 2* listed building by John Meard in Dean St, Soho, that was once home to a club run by Samuel Johnson and Thomas Gainsborough. 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
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
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.'
Three Poet Laureates — Alfred Austin
Alfred Austin
Alfred Austin was an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896 upon the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson.-Life:...
, John Masefield
John Masefield
John Edward Masefield, OM, was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967...
and John Betjeman
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...
— have graced its ranks, while guest speakers included Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
, Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was an English playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden , A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.Born Frances Eliza Hodgson, she lived in Cheetham Hill, Manchester...
, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
, TS Eliot and Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
. Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
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
George Meredith
George Meredith, OM was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era.- Life :Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two...
; he was followed by Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
; who was in turn succeeded by JM Barrie. Subsequent presidents included the architectural historian Sir Banister Fletcher, the Anglo-Irish writer, dramatist and poet Lord Dunsany, Compton Mackenzie
Compton Mackenzie
Sir Compton Mackenzie, OBE was a writer and a Scottish nationalist.-Background:Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool, England, into a theatrical family of Mackenzies, but many of whose members used Compton as their stage surname, starting with his grandfather Henry Compton, a well-known...
– author of Whisky Galore – and Laurence Meynell. The current president is the author and Independent columnist John Walsh.
Awards
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 AwardDolman Best Travel Book Award
The Dolman Best Travel Book Award is one of the two principal annual travel book awards in Britain, and the only one that is open to all writers...
, and the Banister Fletcher
Banister Fletcher
Sir Banister Flight Fletcher was an English architect and architectural historian, as was his father, also named Banister Fletcher....
Award for the best book on art or architecture.
Past members
- Arnold BennettArnold Bennett- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
- Ford Madox FordFord Madox FordFord Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature...
- C. S. ForesterC. S. ForesterCecil Scott "C.S." Forester was the pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith , an English novelist who rose to fame with tales of naval warfare. His most notable works were the 11-book Horatio Hornblower series, depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic era, and The African Queen...
- Graham GreeneGraham GreeneHenry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
- Archibald GrimkeArchibald GrimkeArchibald Henry Grimké was an American lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat and community leader in the 19th and early 20th century...
- H. Rider HaggardH. Rider HaggardSir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire...
- E. W. Hornung
- Jerome K. JeromeJerome K. JeromeJerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humorist, best known for the humorous travelogue Three Men in a Boat.Jerome was born in Caldmore, Walsall, England, and was brought up in poverty in London...
- Malcolm MuggeridgeMalcolm MuggeridgeThomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...
- Barry PainBarry PainBarry Eric Odell Pain was an English journalist, poet and writer.-Biography:Born in Cambridge, Barry Pain was educated at Sedbergh School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He became a prominent contributor to The Granta...
- Kim PhilbyKim PhilbyHarold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a spy for and later defected to the Soviet Union...
- Anthony PowellAnthony PowellAnthony Dymoke Powell CH, CBE was an English novelist best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time, published between 1951 and 1975....
- Ameen Rihani
- Ernest ShackletonErnest ShackletonSir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...
- W. W. Skeat
- G. M. TrevelyanG. M. TrevelyanGeorge Macaulay Trevelyan, OM, CBE, FRS, FBA , was a British historian. Trevelyan was the third son of Sir George Otto Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, and great-nephew of Thomas Babington Macaulay, whose staunch liberal Whig principles he espoused in accessible works of literate narrative avoiding a...
- H. G. WellsH. G. WellsHerbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
- Thornton WilderThornton WilderThornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
- Harold WilsonHarold WilsonJames Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
- Francis YounghusbandFrancis YounghusbandLieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, KCSI, KCIE was a British Army officer, explorer, and spiritual writer...
- Israel ZangwillIsrael ZangwillIsrael Zangwill was a British humorist and writer.-Biography:Zangwill was born in London on January 21, 1864 in a family of Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia, to Moses Zangwill from what is now Latvia and Ellen Hannah Marks Zangwill from what is now Poland. He dedicated his life to championing...
Present members
- Amanda CraigAmanda CraigAmanda Craig is a British novelist. Craig studied at Bedales School and Cambridge and works as a journalist. She is married with two children and lives in London....
- William Dalrymple
- Michael JacobsMichael Jacobs (writer)Michael Jacobs is a writer of Irish/Italian ancestry with particular interest in Travel, History of Art, Spain, Latin America and Gastronomy...
- Rachel LichtensteinRachel LichtensteinRachel Lichtenstein is a writer, artist and archivist.In 1999 she wrote, with Iain Sinclair Rodinsky's Room, since then she has published Rodinsky's Whitechapel , and On Brick Lane...
- Deborah MoggachDeborah MoggachDeborah Moggach is an English writer. She has written sixteen novels to date, including The Ex-Wives, Tulip Fever, and, most recently, These Foolish Things. She has adapted many of her novels as TV dramas and has also written several film scripts, including the BAFTA-nominated screenplay for Pride...
- Nicola MonaghanNicola MonaghanNicola Monaghan is an English novelist and author of The Killing Jar, Starfishing and The Okinawa Dragon.Monaghan was listed in The Independent’s New Year 2006 list of rising talent, and won a Betty Trask Award, the Author's Club Best First Novel Prize and the Waverton Good Read Award for her debut...
- Andrew O'HaganAndrew O'HaganAndrew O'Hagan, FRSL is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. He is also an Editor at Large of Esquire and is currently a creative writing fellow at King's College London. He was selected by for inclusion in their 2003 list of the top 20 young British novelists. His novels appear...
- Vikram SethVikram SethVikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.-Early life:Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta...
- Miranda SeymourMiranda SeymourMiranda Jane Seymour is an English literary critic, novelist, and biographer.Miranda Seymour was two years old when her parents moved into Thrumpton Hall, the family's ancestral home in Nottinghamshire. This celebrated Jacobean mansion is on the south bank of the River Trent at the secluded...