Julian Barnes, Robert Harris, Michael Connelly and Kemi Badenoch were among the speakers at the Cliveden Literary Festival, in the house above the Thames on 10 and 11 October 2026.
Novelists, historians and politicians met for the Cliveden Literary Festival at Cliveden House in Taplow, Berkshire, on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October 2026. Julian Barnes and Robert Harris led the novelists on the bill.
The Duke of Buckingham bought Cliveden in 1666 and turned two hunting lodges into a house above 400 acres running down to the Thames. Alexander Pope wrote about it, Jonathan Swift stayed in it, and later centuries made it a salon and the setting for political scandal.
A committee of writers and historians founded the festival there in 2017. Andrew Roberts is president and Natalie Livingstone chairman, with Catherine Ostler and Simon Sebag Montefiore as vice-chairmen.
The programme puts novelists, historians and politicians in the same rooms to argue. On the 2024 bill, Salman Rushdie talked through his career with Ian McEwan, and Alex Younger, lately chief of MI6, discussed threats facing the West with Niall Ferguson.
In 2026 the American novelists Michael Connelly and Jay McInerney joined the bill, with Tom Holland and Deborah Lipstadt on history. Kemi Badenoch, Michael Gove and Wes Streeting spoke on politics, and Roberts and Sebag Montefiore appeared across both days.