The Many Rooms of Holland House

Abstract

Holland House, Kensington, was one of the most important cultural sites in Romantic London. The circle established there was known across the continent: it included British writers such as Sheridan, Byron, and Macaulay, as well as the European radicals Blanco White and Foscolo. The portraits of Renaissance authors that adorned the walls of Holland House helped set the stage for a cosmopolitan group that advocated liberal and radical reform in Britain and Europe. The ‘Rooms’ of my title refers to the attempt in this essay to move interpretation from the adjoining reception room and dining room, the traditional site of a salon, and into the library, an unexamined space that offers a new perspective on Holland House and the writers it supported. Analysis has hitherto been restricted to the house’s most ostensibly public spaces, which has led to the definition of the Holland’s circle as a salon, a term that is etymologically linked to ‘the reception-room of a […] lady of fashion’.1 I contend that Holland House supported radical literature of the period with varying degrees of strength depending on whether this support was private or public, and that the view of the Hollands that has been propagated thus far has neglected the different function played by the private space of the library. I will begin by discussing the formation of the Holland House circle during the Florentine courtship of Lord Holland and Lady Webster, and how on their return to London the Hollands attempted to emulate the European salons they had seen during their travels. Once I have outlined the traditional view of the house as a Whig salon, I will then offer an alternative narrative to this public face by examining the letters of a number of figures who corresponded with Lord Holland, borrowed books from the house, and published works. I will conclude by examining the difficulties felt by patron and writer in negotiating the public and private sides of the house and the satirical reaction that grew out of these difficulties.