The Royal Society of Literature is the only organisation in the UK entirely devoted to the promotion and enjoyment of really good British writing.

Coleridge was an early Fellow, as were Yeats, Shaw, Kipling and Hardy. Today’s Fellows include Chinua Achebe, Anita Desai, Seamus Heaney, Sir Michael Holroyd, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Doris Lessing, VS Naipaul, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, William Trevor, Claire Tomalin and Rose Tremain. Fellows sign the roll book with Dickens’s quill or Byron’s pen.

Meetings are open to the public. Anyone may become a Member, although Fellowship is by election.

We offer readings, discussions and talks, award prizes and grants, and campaign for writers.

Winner of the 2008 RSL Ondaatje Prize announced

Winners of the 2007 RSL/Jerwood Awards announced

Free-range expertise — Fellows and Members name their favourite independent bookshops across the country.

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Registered Charity no. 213-962
info@rslit.org