Thursday 28 June, 2018

Cliveden Literary Festival, the political and literary salon for the 21st century, returns for its second year

“Probably the world’s best small literary festival” Ian McEwan

• The festival runs from Saturday 29 – Sunday 30 September 2018

• Speakers include Sir , Sarah Waters, Edmund de Waal, Hanif Kureishi, Paula Byrne, , Dambisa Moyo, Alain de Botton, Sir , Priti Patel, David Olusoga, Cherie Blair and Armando Iannucci

• Tickets can be purchased from clivedenliteraryfestival.org

In 2017, Cliveden House’s long tradition as a political and literary salon was revived with the launch of the Cliveden Literary Festival. This autumn, the festival returns for its second year on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 September 2018. Tickets are available via the festival website.

The festival takes place at Cliveden House, which sits above the Thames in Buckinghamshire, surrounded by 376 acres of National Trust grounds. In the course of its 350 year history, Cliveden has frequently been a setting for political machinations, romantic intrigues, and intellectual debates. The list of luminaries to have stayed there includes poets and film stars, conservatives and communists, satirists and Prime Ministers. Cliveden has hosted every monarch since Charles II, and recently the house’s longstanding connection with the royal family was the subject of international interest when the Duchess of Sussex chose to stay there on the eve of her wedding.

The 2018 programme features: writers and historians Tina Brown, Helen Castor, Sir Harry Evans, Misha Glenny, Dan Jones, Suzannah Lipscomb, Natalie Livingstone, Margaret MacMillan, Catherine Ostler, John Preston, Professor David Reynolds, Andrew Roberts, Simon Sebag , Kate Williams, Naomi Wolf and Andrea Wulf; psychologist Tanya Byron; former Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard

Dearlove; architect Amanda Levete; Director of the V&A Tristram Hunt; businesswoman Dame Helena Morrissey; actress Ruth Wilson and many more.

Panel topics and sessions for this year’s festival include: reflections on WWI in its centenary year; and espionage in the 21st century; women and power; female monarchs; great literary adaptations for film and television; as well as the festival mainstays of history and politics, with a closing debate on Brexit between Philip Collins, Jonathan Freedland, Anne McElvoy, Kwasi Kwarteng, Stephen Pollard and Sarah Vine.

This year’s Cliveden Literary Festival is not to be missed. As one of last year’s speakers, Lady Antonia Fraser said: “Cliveden has moved into my top bracket of Literary Festivals: intelligent and also fun.”

Chairman of Cliveden Literary Festival and author of The Mistresses of Cliveden, Natalie Livingstone, comments: “I am thrilled that Cliveden is once again hosting such an exciting array of cultural tastemakers, brilliant writers and speakers.”

President of Cliveden Literary Festival and author, Professor Andrew Roberts, says: “Following the great success of last year, we are very excited to be presenting another amazing line up, which reflects Cliveden’s central place in the worlds of history, politics, architecture, powerful women and the arts.”

The festival is sponsored by Citi Private Bank and Blain|Southern and is supported by the National Trust and Iconic Luxury Hotels. It is presented in association with Tatler and other sponsors and partners include The Arts Club, David Clulow, Fortnum & Mason, John Sandoe Books, Sipsmith, Nyetimber and Volvo Car UK.

Response to the inaugural Cliveden Literary Festival in 2017:

“The Cliveden festival is remarkable, all considerations of architecture and landscape apart, for having arrived in the world fully formed. First it wasn’t, then it was. You look out over the marvelously engineered gardens into country you hardly recognise, and count your blessings.” ,

“It may only be in its second year, but Cliveden has already established itself as the Glyndebourne of literary festivals” Tatler

“This brand-new book-fest has undoubtedly and excitingly put itself on the cultural map”

“Unquestionably the ultimate backdrop for a weekend celebration of literature and history.” Spears Magazine

“At the Cliveden Literary Festival, the Old Un had a thrillingly high-minded time, listening to authors from Antonia Fraser to Robert Harris” The Oldie

Ticket Prices:

 Day Tickets for Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 September: £99 per person per day  Weekend Ticket (for entry to both Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 September): £180 per person  Student discounts available  Pricing is subject to a booking fee at the time of purchase

Find out more about Cliveden Literary Festival at: www.clivedenliteraryfestival.org

Twitter: @ClivedenLitFest

Facebook: ClivedenLiteraryFestival

Instagram: @ClivedenLitFest

#ClivedenLitFest2018

-ends-

For further information please contact Four Colman Getty:

Laura Steele [email protected] / 020 3697 4241

Hannah Davies [email protected] / 020 3697 4251

Notes to Editors

Assets

 Images from the 2017 festival and a timeline featuring key moments in the history of Cliveden House can be downloaded here

 A highlights video from the 2017 can be viewed and embedded from here

About Cliveden Literary Festival

Cliveden Literary Festival launched in 2017 to revive the rich literary heritage of Cliveden House, which has been inspiring writers and thinkers from Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Alfred Lord Tennyson, George Bernard Shaw and Jonathan Swift to Sir Winston Churchill. Over one weekend last October, 50 speakers including Sebastian Faulks, Robert Harris, Bettany Hughes, Kwasi Kwarteng, Ian McEwan and Ruth Rogers and enthralled the audience with wide ranging discussions and debates on politics and scandal, the Munich crisis, and 100 years of the Balfour Declaration, among others. It returns for its second year on 29 and 30 September to cement its position in the literary calendar.

Cliveden Literary Festival Board

Professor Andrew Roberts, President

Prof Andrew Roberts has written thirteen books, including Eminent Churchillians, Salisbury: Victorian Titan, Napoleon and Wellington, Waterloo, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, Masters and Commanders, The Storm of War and Napoleon the Great, the last of which won the Grand Prix of the Fondation Napoléon in Paris and became a New York Times bestseller. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, has a PhD from Cambridge University, is the Lehrman Distinguished Fellow at the New-York Historical Society and a visiting professor at the War Studies department of King’s College, . He is also the Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His new book Churchill: Walking with Destiny is published by Penguin in October.

Natalie Livingstone, Chairman

Natalie Livingstone was born and raised in London. She graduated with a first class degree in history from Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1998. She began her career as a feature writer at the and now contributes to Tatler, Harper’s Bazaar, US Vogue, Elle, and The Mail on Sunday. Her first book, bestseller, The Mistresses of Cliveden, tells the story of five extraordinary women and this remarkable house and has been optioned by Carnival Films, the television drama company behind Downton Abbey. Natalie lives in London with her husband and three children and is working on her next book The Women of Rothschild.

Catherine Ostler, Vice-Chairman

Catherine Ostler is Contributing Editor at the . She has been Editor of Tatler, Editor of ES Magazine at the Evening Standard, and Editor of Times Weekend. She has also been a columnist for the Evening Standard, a contributing editor to Newsweek, an occasional columnist for the Financial Times, and writes for Vogue (British and US), Harper’s Bazaar and US Town &Country amongst other publications. Catherine read English at Oxford University. She lives in London with her husband and their three children. She is currently working on her first book, a historical biography to be published by Simon & Schuster.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Vice-Chairman

Simon Sebag Montefiore is a bestselling prizewinning historian and novelist whose books are published in 48 languages. He is author of the Moscow Trilogy novels, Sashenka, One Night in Winter (won Political Novel of the Year Prize; longlisted for the Orwell Prize) and Red Sky at Noon; the histories & Potemkin (being developed by and ), Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar (won History Book of the Year Prize), Young Stalin (won LA Times Biography and Costa Biography prizes), : the Biography, a Number One Sunday Times bestseller and his latest, The Romanovs. All of these are being developed as movies/TV dramas.

Tina Brown, Honorary Chairman, US

Tina Brown is an award-winning journalist, editor, author, and founder of the Women in the World summits. Between 1979 and 2001, she was editor-in-chief of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and authored the 2007 best-selling biography of the Princess of Wales, The Diana Chronicles. In 2000, she was awarded the honor of Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen for her services to journalism. In 2007 she was inducted into the Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame.

In October 2008 Brown launched and edited the digital news site The Daily Beast, which won the news website of the year award in 2012 and 2013. She launched Tina Brown Live Media in 2014 to expand Women in the World internationally with summits in London and Delhi and with smaller salons throughout the United States. Tina Brown is married to editor, publisher, and historian Sir Harold Evans and lives in New York City.

Cliveden Literary Festival Committee

Saffron Aldridge, Brooke Barzun, Josh Berger, Nicholas Berggruen, Harry Blain, Richard Dennen, Celia Dunstone, Allie Esiri, Tania Fares, Niall Ferguson, Sacha Forbes, Susannah Gross, Samantha Heyworth, Laura Maxwell, Tristram Hunt, Frances Osborne, Yana Peel, Jessica Pulay, David Reynolds, Caroline Richenberg, Ruth Rogers, Hannah Rothschild, Eric Schmidt, Plum Sykes and Kate Weinberg

Cliveden House

Cliveden House is a privately owned 5 Red Star award-winning hotel, and sister to the world-renowned Chewton Glen Hotel & Spa in Hampshire. Its story is one of over 350 years of powerful personalities, debaucherous parties and scandalous affairs. Built in 1666 by the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, as a gift to his mistress, Cliveden House has remained a pinnacle of intrigue and glamour for the elite. It is a venue, which in every corner conjures a story from its 350-year history, including the renowned literary salons of the 1930s hosted by Nancy Astor and frequented by Charlie Chaplin and George-Bernard Shaw, along with the scandalous Profumo affair of the 1960s, which is the subject of a six part BBC One drama set to air in 2019. Enriched with antique furniture and period features, it has stayed true to its roots whilst also providing a luxurious setting to rest, meet and play. Now, the Grade I stately home set upon 376 acres of National Trust grounds is a luxurious five-star hotel. For more information please see here.

Four Colman Getty June 2018