What do Plato, Jane Austen, Dickens, Proust and Jackie Collins have in common? They all wrote a good party.

In  A Curious Invitation, Suzette Field, one of London’s premier party promoters, casts her professional eye over some famous fictional festivities: taking place everywhere from ancient Babylon in 500 BC to outer space in the distant future. Find out who was there, what they wore, what they ate and drank and what (and who) they talked about in this invaluable guide to the greatest parties in literature.

"It takes a book like Suzette Field's A Curious Invitation to remind us of the absolute centrality of social entertainment to the way in which a literary classic works its spell." - The Daily Telegraph

"Need a bit of entertaining inspiration? Take a page from a new book on the greatest gatherings that never were." - The Wall Street Journal

"Suzette Field is a genuinely talented story teller. Her book possess a playful lightness of touch, but is pregnant with fact and meaning. It is both amusing and informative. Never has education been such a pleasure, never reading a learned exposition so delightful." - Dan Cruickshank Historian, BBC television presenter and author

"This invaluable guide is written with a professional's eye and is full of wit and apercus." -The Chap magazine

"A Curious Invitation (Picador) is her review of what she considers to be the 40 greatest parties in literature, a subject that I suspect could become a dinner party topic in its own right." - Mrs Moneypenny, Financial Times

"What a brilliant idea." - The Lady

"With panache, attention to arresting details, and a flair for mixing literary classics with pop-culture hits, prominent London event planner Field invites readers to forty fictional parties... She quotes lavishly from her sources to splendid effect." - Publishers Weekly

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