Banquets and dinner parties
Masquerades and fancy dress * Banquets and dinner parties * Soirées and drinks parties * Balls * Orgies, Wakes, etc.

Belshazzar’s Feast
From the Book of Daniel, the Bible (c 200 BC)

Belshazzar, the last King of Babylon, throws a great feast for a thousand of his lords, but he makes the mistake of drinking wine from the gold and silver goblets looted from the temple at Jerusalem by his father Nebuchadnezzar. This arouses the wrath of God who sends along a gatecrasher in the form of a disembodied hand which writes on the wall the mysterious words: Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin. Belshazzar summons his astrologers and offers them a chain of gold, red garments and a third part of his kingdom if they can decipher the message.

The Bacchanal of the Century
From The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831) by Honoré de Balzac

A young penniless writer, Raphael de Valentin, wanders into a Parisian curiosity shop on his way to the river Seine to drown himself. The elderly shop keeper offers him a shagreen (an ass’s skin) as a gift and explains that the skin will fulfil any desire its owner wishes. Raphael’s wish is for a royal banquet, “a carouse worthy of this century” with enough wine to bring about “three days of delirium” and graced with passionate women. On leaving the shop he runs into three friends who invite him to just such an event.

the Warrior Feast
From The Prose Edda (c1220) by Snorri Sturluson

Valhalla, residence of Odin, king of the gods, plays host to a permanent party. Its guests are the Einherjar, the dead who have fallen in battle. They spend their days fighting in the castle’s grounds before returning to Valhalla in the evening for a banquet. The mead is served by Valkyries and the flesh comes from a divine boar, Sæhrimnir, who is cooked every night and then magically reborn the next morning. This revelry is destined to continue until Ragnarok, the day when the warriors will ride out to fight the wolf Fenrir, who according to the prophecy will slay Odin and bring about the end of the world.

The Chief of Police’s Reception
From The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich (1835) by Nikolai Gogol

The Chief of Police’s reception is the grandest and most talked-about event of 1810 in Mirgorod, a small provincial town in the Ukraine. All the local dignataries are present, the only absentee being Ivan Nikiforovich Dovgotchkun, who has refused to attend on account of a falling-out with his neighbour and former best friend Ivan Ivanovich Pererepenko. This occured when Ivan Nikiforovich called Ivan Ivanovich 'a goose'. One of the guests, Anton Prokofievich, is despatched to fetch Ivan Nikiforovich, to attempt a reconciliation between the two friends.

Bilbo’s Eleventy First Birthday party
From The Lord of the Rings (1954) by J.R.R. Tolkien

Bilbo Baggins throws a party to celebrate his 111th birthday and the 33rd birthday of his nephew Frodo. To represent their combined age (144) a Gross of guests are invited to a special banquet, with the rest of the town of Hobbiton tagging along to make up the numbers. A whole day of eating and drinking is followed by a spectacular firework display, courtesy of Gandalf the Wizard, and exotic gifts are distributed to all and sundry. The evening culminates in a speech by Bilbo and following a few barbed compliments to his guests, he abruptly vanishes in a blinding flash of light.

the Wonderland Banquet
From Lights Out in Wonderland (2010) by DBC Pierre

25-year-old “microwave chef” and anti-capitalist activist Gabriel Brockwell checks out of rehab with the simple intention of killing himself but, after a bizarre interlude in Tokyo, finds himself having to source a venue for a banquet for the super rich thrown by Didier “Le Basque” Laxalt - “the godfather of high-octane catering.” Gabriel alights on Tempelhof airport in Berlin and at the height of the credit crunch a select group of bankers (of whom only two aren’t billionaires) flies in for one last evening of decadence and excess “before vanishing in advance of government investigations”.

Queen Alice's Feast
From Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) by Lewis Carroll

Alice, seven and a half, bored one frosty November evening climbs though her living room mirror to see what’s on the other side and finds herself a pawn in a giant chess game being played all over the world. Advancing to the eight square she finds (in accordance with the rules of chess) she becomes a Queen and is invited to a ball to celebrate her promotion. Unfortunately her co-hostesses are to be the annoying White and Red Queens and when Alice arrives at the venue she can’t even persuade the frog doorman to let her in.

 

 

Trimalchio's Dinner party
From The Satyricon (AD 63-5) attributed to Gaius Petronius Arbiter

Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio, a former slave who has since risen to become the wealthiest man in the ancient Roman province of Campania, throws a lavish dinner party to remind his guests of this social advancement. A total of thirteen punishing courses, washed down with 100 year old Falernian wine, are served by singing, dancing and poetry-reciting slaves, while Trimalchio sounds off about his wealth, his philosophy of life and his bowel complaints. In a mawkish finale he even stages a dress rehearsal of his own funeral complete with band and weeping mourners.


 

Illustrations by Lynn Hatzius   

The Fifth Avenue party
From The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) by Tom Wolfe.

Wall Street trader, and self-styled Master of the Universe, Sherman McCoy and his interior designer wife Judy attend a dinner party thrown by fashionable Manhattan hosts Leon and Inez Bavardage. The guest list comprises European aristocrats, literary and cultural figures, designers, business titans and VIFs (“very important fags”). The female guests are “social X-rays in puffed dresses who are “starved to near perfection.” To Sherman’s dismay he finds the hostess has, inadvertently or otherwise, seated him next to his secret mistress.