"British literary salons of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is a comprehensive study of the British salon between the 1780s and the 1840s. It traces the activities of three salonnières, Mary Berry, Lady Holland, and the Countess of Blessington, maps out the central place these circles held in London, and explains to what extent they shaped intellectual debate and publishing ventures. Authors like Byron, Moore, Thackeray, and Baillie emerge as regular guests. Using a large number of sources--diaries, letters, silver-fork novels, satires, travel writing, Keepsakes, and imaginary conversations--this study establishes sociable networks of days gone by"--