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The Secret Life of the Hotel
- Author
- Eloise Moss
- Narrator
- Lindsey Campbell
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 22 January 2026
- Run Time
- 13 hours 28 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in hotels?
Hotels represent nations, hosting visiting monarchs, politicians, and diplomats. Hotels underpin global networks of travel and communication, on which national and international prosperity have increasingly depended since the end of the First World War. Yet hotels are also places where people can be anonymous; where murderers and thieves mix with adulterers and con artists; and where prejudice finds expression in who is refused access, and in the forms of ‘service’ provided by staff in the lowest-paid roles. The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1918 is the first book to uncover how hotels entrenched inequality, prejudice, and exploitation in Britain’s tourist sector, and in wider society and culture, during the 20th century.
Eloise Moss delves into hotel murders, swindles, and scandals, including the history of Agatha Christie’s disappearance in 1926, the ‘Margate Hotel Murder’, and the divorce of Wallis Simpson in 1936 so she could marry King Edward VIII. Moss’s exploration of the hotel also shines a light on the fight against the colour bar, the formation of the British civil rights movement, and the visit to London of Martin Luther King Jr.
The Secret Life of the Hotel uniquely tells the story of Britain’s relationship with the world during the 20th century through the prism of its hotels, showing how their infrastructure and ‘welcome’ had profound consequences for women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ citizens, and people with disabilities.
Critics Review
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A dismal, unflattering portrait of the hidden side of British life is contained in the details of Eloise Moss’s well-researched The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1981 … An eye-opening publication.
The Independent
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Well written, with historiographic debates largely confined to the footnotes, 'The Secret Life of the Hotel' is engaging without being superficial, and offers a nuanced and thought-provoking study that will likely appeal to scholars, students, and non-academic readers alike.
H-Soz-Kult
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Stuffed with entertaining and sometimes hair-raising anecdotes, The Secret Life of the Hotel is a vivid examination of how twentieth-century hotels, big and small, often operated (and still operate) on the transgressive borders of British civil society. Moss demonstrates how establishments that once simply provided a service for travellers became places of reinvention, fantasy and often danger, where conmen, adultery and criminality flourished.
Lucy Lethbridge, Journalist and Author, UK
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A truly inclusive history of the exclusions of modern Britain. Weaving together rich stories and voices from the margins, Moss exposes the stratification as well as the empowerment of the hospitality industry, bringing hotels to life with the same vivid personality as their proprietors, workers, and patrons.
Elizabeth Prevost, Professor of History, Grinnell College, USA
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This is an engaging and incisive history of the hotel in modern Britain, underpinned by deep research and cutting edge scholarship. In these pages you will find scandals, murders and dramatic human stories aplenty, all of which are used to shed light on the political, social, cultural and economic changes of the last century. Highly recommended.
Adrian Bingham, Professor of Modern British History, University of Sheffield, UK
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A vivid and compelling history of hotels as you’ve never known them. Eloise Moss is at her exquisite best in her latest work, which seamlessly blends engaging storytelling with extensive research, illuminating how hotel life reflects and shapes broader currents in national identity, class, gender, race relations, and globalization. Using individual examples of the characters who helped shape hotels: politicians, chambermaids, adulterers, criminals, architects, dancers and people of colour, Moss brings to life the empty and anonymous hotel room marketed to travelers, and explores the role of hotels as historic sites where power and desire intersect. Beautifully crafted, engagingly written, and conceptually innovative, this book is a delight.
Amy Bell, Professor of History, Huron University College, Canada
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Written with customary verve, Eloise Moss's The Secret Life of the Hotel shows us how hotels were central to stories of crime, protest and sexual identity in twentieth-century Britain. Check-in to your room, make a cup of tea and enjoy this engaging social and cultural history of the hotel.
Lizzie Seal, Professor of Criminology, University of Sussex, UK
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Moss brilliantly portrays hotels as landscapes of power, where managers, workers and guests negotiate access, conditions and social status. This history will haunt you every time you enter a hotel lobby.
Lucy Delap, Professor, University of Cambridge, UK
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Eloise Moss
- Narrator
- Lindsey Campbell
- Duration
- 13 hours 28 minutes
- Release Date
- 22 January 2026
- ISBN
- 9781350599307
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- European history, Social and cultural history
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents The Secret Life of the Hotel by Eloise Moss, read by Lindsey Campbell.Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in hotels? Hotels represent nations, hosting visiting monarchs, politicians, and diplomats. Hotels underpin global networks of travel and communication, on which national and international prosperity have increasingly depended since the end of the First World War. Yet hotels are also places where people can be anonymous; where murderers and thieves mix with adulterers and con artists; and where prejudice finds expression in who is refused access, and in the forms of ‘service’ provided by staff in the lowest-paid roles. The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1918 is the first book to uncover how hotels entrenched inequality, prejudice, and exploitation in Britain’s tourist sector, and in wider society and culture, during the 20th century.Eloise Moss delves into hotel murders, swindles, and scandals, including the history of Agatha Christie’s disappearance in 1926, the ‘Margate Hotel Murder’, and the divorce of Wallis Simpson in 1936 so she could marry King Edward VIII. Moss’s exploration of the hotel also shines a light on the fight against the colour bar, the formation of the British civil rights movement, and the visit to London of Martin Luther King Jr.The Secret Life of the Hotel uniquely tells the story of Britain’s relationship with the world during the 20th century through the prism of its hotels, showing how their infrastructure and ‘welcome’ had profound consequences for women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ citizens, and people with disabilities.
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