Christmas reading

Books on London Clubland which are currently in print

With Christmas coming up, I am mindful that readers may be wondering what to add to their Yuletide reading lists, or to buy as stocking-fillers. Fortunately, there are plenty of club-centric releases to choose from. [Titles below are hyperlinked through to their publisher.]

The last couple of months have seen several new releases:

The Decline and Fall of Macready’s Club: A Dystopian Fable, by “A Gentleman” (London: ASys Publishing, 30 September 2024). Paperback £6.99.

This novel looks at an entirely fictitious Covent Garden traditional gentlemen’s club which is popular with actors and lawers, that is gripped by various committee machinations and public feuds around the admission of women. Perish the thought that it may be based on any real-life events.

Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite, by Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 10 September 2024). Hardback, £20.00.

A new book based on a scholarly dissection of the 120-year back-catalogue of Who’s Who entries, it includes extensive discussion of the evolving role played by clubs in the British ‘establishment’ today.

Behind Closed Doors: The Secret Life of London Private Members’ Clubs - updated paperback edition, by Seth Alexander Thévoz (London: Robinson, for Little, Brown, 26 September 2024). Paperback, £12.99.

The paperback edition of my own Clubland history from 2022, with an extra chapter bringing it up to date - including a look at how the Carlton Club proved instrumental in the downfall of two Prime Ministers in three months, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

In addition, several more recent books on Clubland remain in print:

Clubland’s Hidden Treasures, by Sam Aldred (London: privately published, 23 September 2020). Paperback, £12.99.

An anecdotal look at an artefact from each of the 38 British clubs visited by the author, Savilian Sam Aldred, and what that tells us about the character of each club.

Clubland: How the Working Men’s Club Shaped Britain, by Pete Brown (Manchester: HarperNorth, 9 June 2022). Hardback, £20.00.

Part travelogue and part social history, this insightful history looks at how thousands of working men’s clubs grew out of London Clubland, defining communities around Britain.

Palaces of Power: The Birth and Evolution of London's Clubland, by Stephen Hoare (Stroud: The History Press, 2019). Paperback £17.99.

Hoare - who subsequently published a history of Piccadilly - has much to say on the coffee house origins of clubs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Gentlemen’s Clubs in Europe, by Charles-Louis de Noüe (with Serge Gleizes)(Paris: Editions du Palais, 3 October 2020 - trans. into English, from the original French text, Clubs & Cercles en Europe). Hardback, €73.40.

Sumptuously illustrated, this coffee table book looks at a selection of 21 aristocratic clubs from across Europe, typically homing in on one or two per country.

London Clubland: A Cultural History of Gender and Class in Late Victorian Britain, by Amy Milne-Smith (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 16 November 2011). Hardback, £109.99.

Amy Milne-Smith’s important academic monograph, looking at the development of masculinity in Victorian clubs, has aged well in the decade since it was first published, flagging up important developments.

London’s Pall Mall Clubs, by David Palfreyman (Oxford: privately published, 15 April 2019). Paperback, £9.99.

An affectionate, scholarly study of clubs as an institution, produced as part of a series also looking at London’s Livery Companies and Inns of Court.

Ashton & Reid on Clubs and Associations, 3rd edition, by David Ashton, Paul Reid and Ian Snaith (London: Bloomsbury Professional, 20 November 2020). Hardback, £135.00.

Since its first appearance in 1997, Ashton & Reid has been more than just a legal textbook (although it is that as well); it provides a comprehensive look at club governance in the UK, bostered by abundant references to case law and other precedents.

The are also numerous individual club histories which remain in print:

Tales From The Colony: The Lost Bohemia of Bacon, Belcher & Board, by Darren Coffield (London: Unbound, 16 April 2018). Hardback, £25.00.

The London Sketch Club, 1898-2023: A Visual Celebration, by Anthony Cohen (London: London Sketch Club, 15 February 2024). Hardback, £40.00.

Brooks’s, 1764-2014: The Story of a Whig Club, by J. Mordaunt Crook and Charles Sebag-Montefiore (eds) (London: Paul Holberton, 12 December 2013). Hardback, £40.00.

The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age, by Leo Damrosch (New Haven, Connecticut: 14 April 2020). Paperback, £12.99.

The Flyfishers: A History of the Flyfishers’ Club, by Andrew Herd (London: Flyfishers’ Club/Medlar Press, 1 July 2019). Hardback, £83.00.

The In & Out: A History of the Naval and Military Club, by Tim Newark (London: Osprey, 21 November 2015).

The Groucho Club – 30th Anniversary, by Alice Patten (London: Preface Publishing, 18 June 2015). Hardback, £35.00.

Tales from the Special Forces Club, by Sean Rayment (London: Collins, 14 February 2013). Paperback, £9.99.

Writers, Lovers, Soldiers, Spies: A History of the Authors’ Club of London, 1891-2016, by C. J. Schüler (London: Authors’ Club, 18 November 2016). Hardback, £19.99.

My Dear Mr. Rose: Letters to the Honorary Secretary of the Authors’ Club, 1908-1934, by C. J. Schüler (ed.) (London: Authors’ Club, 11 May 2023). Hardback, £12.99.

Brave Lives: The Members and Staff of the Travellers Club Who Fell in the Great War, by Julian Tunnicliffe (ed.) (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 3 October 2017). Hardback, £20.00.

The Athenæum: “More Than Just Another London Club”, by Michael Wheeler (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 22 September 2020). Hardback, £40.00.

Noble Savages: The Savage Club and the Great War, 1914-1918, by James Wilson (London: J. H. Productions, 3 July 2018). Hardback, £24.99.

(There are also some London club histories still very much in print, but not always available to the general public; these are typically purchased directly from the Club.)

In addition, 2025 will bring several new titles, including a richly illustrated history of the interiors of London clubs by Andrew Jones, author of The Buildings of Green Park (2022); and my forthcoming reference work on club culture today, London Clubland: A Companion for the Curious, which will be published in May. I’m currently deeply involved in various aspects of production on the latter, but hope to be able to share the front cover design soon!