Visit Cliveden House on most days of the year and you’ll find a smart 5-star hotel, complete with luxury spa, afternoon tea offering, and pleasingly scandalous swimming pool.
But visit it on October 15-16 and you’ll find something very different. For one weekend only, Cliveden will become a meeting place for writers, thinkers, philosophers, activists, politicians and more, gathering in marquees and great halls to discuss the pressing issues of the day. This is the Cliveden Literary Festival, an annual event which Alain de Botton has called “the most dignified and beautiful literary festival on the planet.”
Dan Bridge
Natalie Livingstone is chairman of the Festival, having founded it with the help of fellow historians Andrew Roberts, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Catherine Ostler. The idea came to her while she was researching her first book, The Mistresses of Cliveden.
“Before I started writing the book, I knew that Cliveden House was synonymous in popular culture with scandal and sex as a result of the Profumo Affair,” she tells me.
“What I found out during the course of my research was that Cliveden has always been a literary salon, and since its inception in 1666 has hosted a wide variety of literary greats, from Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift to Tennyson, George Bernard Shaw and Rudyard Kipling.
Over the years, it really has welcomed the who’s who of the UK’s literati. Our aim in founding the festival was really to revive Cliveden’s history as a literary salon, and to create a new chapter for the house as a sanctuary for lovers of literature.”
The idea quickly caught on. In its first year, the festival boasted a glittering guest list and a star-studded range of speakers including Howard Jacobsen, Simon Schama, Michael Gove, Anne McElvoy and Lady Antonia Fraser. In subsequent years the festival has only grown in popularity, gaining a reputation as a space for fresh ideas, forward-thinking debate and discussion.
“The reception has been beyond my wildest dreams,” Natalie says.
“People have been so kind, so receptive, and I’m really grateful for how well the festival has gone down! I can’t believe we’re now in our fifth year… It’s all gone so fast.”
In an age of e-books and screen time, it’s perhaps surprising that an idea as time-honoured as the literary salon should gain such immediate traction. But when I ask Natalie the secret of the Festival’s success, she has a ready answer.
“I actually think there’s a strong counterculture emerging, in which real -life events and real-life books are actually starting to dominate the cultural conversation,” she explains.
real-life books are actually starting to dominate the cultural conversation
“The idea that you might have to work to understand something is the diametric opposite of our culture of instant gratification. I think people find it immensely refreshing. That was particularly true after the pandemic, when people couldn’t wait to be back in an arena where they could communicate in real life with other people about things that were affecting them. It’s the perfect antidote to Zoom fatigue!”
And this year’s festival promises to be every bit as exciting as those which have preceded it. Speakers will include HM King Simeon of the Bulgarians, actor Chris Evans, author Monica Ali, physicist Brian Cox, and journalist Jonathan Freedland. When it comes to selecting its speakers, the festival committee has very clear guidelines:
“We’re looking for someone who’s really passionate about what they do, absolutely at the top of their game, and able to convey to an audience how fascinated they are by their topic,” says Natalie.
“What always astonishes me is the calibre of the audience questions. The people who come are so clever and so engaged! It’s a pleasure just to listen in.”
Natalie herself has recently published a new book, which she’ll be discussing at this year’s festival. The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the Word’s most Famous Dynasty is a meticulously researched investigation into the lives of the female members of the Rothschild family.
“These women were previously footnotes in history, so it’s an incredible privilege and honour to be able to tell their story – or rather, to piece it together,” Natalie explains.
“Their lives were in some ways symptomatic of gender exclusion throughout the centuries. In the case of the Rothschilds, a codicil in the will of the founding father of the Rothschild family stipulated that no woman must ever be involved in the family business, and effectively disinherited his female descendants. They really were reduced to the ranks of second-class citizens.”
The idea of rediscovering forgotten women is something that has motivated Natalie throughout her career. She’s drawn to the stories of women who have been shunted aside or consigned to the shadows; women who have worked against the forces of sexism and discrimination to subvert expectations and achieve against the odds. Her first visit to Cliveden was something of an awakening in that regard.
“In April 2012, my husband (a hotelier) became involved with Cliveden. I walked into the Great Hall at Cliveden and I just found myself surrounded by these amazing portraits of women who I didn’t recognise at all – the only one who was remotely familiar was Nancy Astor.
I thought to myself that I’d love to find out their stories, and to illuminate their lives. So I began my research into the women who had helped to create the story of Cliveden, and I found excavating these previously unacknowledged and woefully under-researched lives to be incredibly fulfilling,”
What surprised Natalie most was the sheer quantities of source material which had gone unused by historians, interested only in the stories of men.
So much historical material on the Cliveden and Rothschild women was neglected by virtue of gender
“What I’m really drawn to is the human story – regardless of social strata, regardless of where they are in the world. The Cliveden and Rothschild women are the elite of society, and I’m really aware of that. But it’s fascinating and quite astonishing to see just how much historical material there is – how many letters, how many diaries – which were just being neglected by virtue of gender.
A lot of the time, these women don’t even get their own archives – their diaries and letters are stored in the archives of their husbands. Historians – especially in the case of the Rothschilds - are understandably interested in the story of the bank, and economics, but for me it was all about the human part of the story, and the amount of virgin source material was absolutely overwhelming.”
And Natalie isn’t finished with her one-woman crusade to rediscover history’s overlooked heroines.
“I have lots of ideas, there are lots of amazing women that I’m looking into, and hopefully I’ll find a treasure trove of letters somewhere. But the interesting thing is that I often get my inspiration from the themes of the festival, so after every festival I’m buzzing with different ideas for topics for books. It’s so inspiring to hear all those incredible minds come together on the same weekend!”
Adrian Houston
Which brings us back to Cliveden Literary Festival, that celebration of original thought that brings together the great and the good of the UK’s writers and thinkers. Luckily for literature lovers, Natalie believes that the festival is in no danger of slowing down any time soon.
“I’d love it to keep going and going, and the most important thing is to keep the quality consistent, and keep this perfect alchemy of speakers. I hope that the eclecticism of the festival, and the dynamic array of debates and talks and conversations – I hope that speaks for itself! We’re so excited for the 2022 festival, it can’t come soon enough!”
Cliveden Literary Festival takes place from 15-16 October. You can book your tickets here.
