In 2023 I took you around the world looking at statues of different authors. This year’s theme also involves travel, this time to literary hotels – places where great writers stayed, or which indulge in a literary theme when it comes to décor, or which feature strongly in novels.
I keep hoping that one day I will be wealthy enough to stay at Brown’s Hotel in London’s Mayfair. The trouble is that the room I want to book is not just any old room, it’s a suite of 87sqm and it was where Rudyard Kipling loved to stay. And it is NOT cheap – only £6,210 per night.
Brown’s Hotel was established in 1837 by James Brown and his wife Sarah – he had been a butler to Lord Byron, and she had been a maid to Lady Byron. It was made up of Georgian townhouses in a row, but soon ran out of space. In 1889 it was merged with another hotel next door and became significantly larger. It is situated on Albemarle Street, just along the road from John Murray’s, the famous publishing house often frequented by Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott. Brown’s was where the first successful telephone call in Europe was made by Alexander Graham Bell. The phone can still be seen there today.
This gorgeous hotel has attracted so many writers – Agatha Christie (who could have based her Bertram’s Hotel, in the novel of that name, on Brown’s, though that is disputed), Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, J.M. Barrie, Bram Stoker, Joseph Conrad, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain (who called the hotel a “blessed retreat”), William Golding, W. Somerset Maugham, Jorge Luis Borges, William Faulkner, Arthur C. Clarke, J.R.R. Tolkien, Tom Wolfe and Stephen King. Sir Winston Churchill, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, once remarked: “When in London, I do not stay at a hotel, I stay at Brown’s.”
Kipling adored Brown’s. He spent the first night of his honeymoon there in 1892. He wrote the last stories of The Jungle Book there in 1894 and treated the place as his London base. He was at a desk there in 1936 when he collapsed and was rushed to hospital, where he died. That desk is there today in the Kipling Suite. The suite was wonderfully refurbished in 2016.
Brown’s is 5-star and is considered one of the oldest luxury hotels in Britain. Maybe if I sell a lot more books, I will one day realise my dream of staying there …
Make me jealous – have you ever stayed at Brown’s Hotel? Tell me your thoughts by leaving a comment here.
Selected links for relevant websites, books, movies, videos, and more. Some of these links lead to protected content on this website, learn more about that here.
Susannah Fullerton: The Kipling Suite
Susannah Fullerton: John Murray’s Publishing House
Susannah Fullerton: Rudyard Kipling: Novelist and Poet of Empire
Susannah Fullerton: Rudyard Kipling is born
Susannah Fullerton: The Elephant’s Child
Susannah Fullerton: Lest We Forget
Susannah Fullerton: A Smuggler’s Song
Susannah Fullerton: Crowd-funding Kipling
Susannah Fullerton: Brief Encounters: Literary Travellers in Australia 1836-1939
Susannah Fullerton: Around the World in 30 Classics
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Brown’s Hotel: The Kipling Suite
Poetry Foundation: Rudyard Kipling
Ruth Wilson
Like Evelyne I also stayed at Browns several times during the eighties. I don’t think I was aware of its history or of its status. We had been recommended by friends who, like us, were far from affluent and also travelled Economy! I guess what that really shows Susannah is how the inequality gap has widened. We did not necessarily have to be part of the wealthiest strand of society to occasionally have a taste of the life style of the rich and glamorous. Well, not the same rooms perhaps but the same treatment and courtesies …
Susannah Fullerton
Yes, the divide between rich and poor just seems to be getting worse, not better. The ordinary rooms at Brown’s will be much much cheaper than the Kipling Suite, but I fear even those are out of my usual travel budget. At least we can dream …
Maria
I hope your wish to stay at Brown’s Hotel is granted one day. The hotel’s plain Jane name belies its colourful history. I had no idea that Churchill was a Nobel laureate and was surprised he received his award for literature. Of course, his writing was excellent but recognition of his contribution to world peace would seem to me to have been the more worthy achievement.
Evelyne Jones
Dear Susannah,
Thanks for all the fascinating history of Browns Hotel. I knew it was an historic Hotel but had no idea of all these details. Yes, I have stayed there and knew it was very special because of the wonderful way we were treated, and the London Cab Driver’s attitude when we were driven there upon arriving in London.
Imagine a tired, dishevelled family, after the crowded, long Economy-Class flight to London, my husband and I , our two little daughters and my dear Mother, arriving very early in the morning, and being shown straight into the Dining Room to be revived by the full English Breakfast Experience, no matter that we were not “properly ” dressed.
It must have been the 80’s and before the “Financial Crises”, but we managed to stay at Browns many times when we were in London on business. We were treated like long-lost relatives on each occasion and always gifts were awaiting our arrival. We never forgot our first night there, when we attended the first show of the brand new musical. “CATS” , by Lloyd-Webber, all that our daughters wanted to do in London. They came back to Browns that night dressed in their CATS T-Shirts, and sat on the Window Sill of our room and sang like the cats! A priceless memory.
Thank you for bringing this back to me.
Evelyne.
Susannah Fullerton
What a lovely story, Evelyne, and nice to know you were well treated there, even if you di not feel appropriately dressed. I would so love to be a ‘regular’ at Browns and known by the staff there, so you were really lucky to have such experiences.