‘Holland House: A History of London’s Most Celebrated Salon’, by Linda Kelly – review

Holland House, which was bombed in 1940, was a large, rambling Jacobean mansion off Kensington High Street. In 1800 it was still in the country, surrounded by leafy woods and fields. Here Lord Holland and his wife Lady Holland created a glittering and influential salon. For over 30 years before the 1832 Reform Act, Holland House was the headquarters of the Whig party. Lord Holland was the nephew of Charles James Fox, and at Holland House the Whig aristocracy — ‘they are all cousins’, as someone said — dined and talked and plotted. An intellectual nerve centre, Holland House was the place where the new men with the new thinking from Scotland met and influenced the Whigs. Byron was a favourite, and it was at Holland House that he first met Lady Caroline Lamb. The cut-throat wit Sidney Smith was a permanent fixture, and Sheridan got drunk there.

Salons are organised and orchestrated by women and, as Linda Kelly shows in this enjoyable book, Lady Holland was considerably larger than life.