British salons, with guests such as Byron, Moore, and Thackeray, were veritable hothouses of political and cultural agitation. Using a number of sources - diaries, letters, silver-fork novels, satires, travel writing, Keepsakes, and imaginary conversations - Schmid paints a vivid picture of the British salon between the 1780s and the 1840s.

1. Traditions and Theories 2. Mary Berry and Her British Spaces 3. Mary Berry as a Learned Woman: Out of the Closet 4. Holland House and Lady Holland 5. The Holland House Set 6. The Countess of Blessington as Hostess 7. The Countess of Blessington as Writer and Editor

Susanne Schmid teaches at Mainz University, Germany. She has published several books, among the Helene Richter-prize winning Shelley's German Afterlives (2007), as well as articles on Romanticism, film studies, and cultural studies.