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“... Twenty years ago, Bertrand Evans published Shakespeare’s Comedies, a book with one idea. Shakespeare, he argued, habitually gives his audience an awareness of the true nature of any dramatic situation greater than that of the characters on the stage. Evans analysed the 13 comedies and the four last plays scene by scene, and concluded that a technique of ‘discrepant awareness’ or ‘exploitable gaps’ between characters and theatre audience lay at the heart of Shakespeare’s dramatic method ...”

“... As a characterisation of analytical philosophy this has the awkward consequence of denying Bertrand Russell membership of the tradition. For Russell never thought that the philosophy of language was the foundation of all other philosophy, indeed was horrified when such a view became the orthodoxy. ‘In common with all philosophers before [the later ...”

“... event could lead to unimaginably disastrous consequences; and he ended his book with a quote from Bertrand Russell, whose uncompromising campaign against nuclear weapons he clearly applauded. For Münzenberg and later Calic and the Luxembourg Committee, conspiracy theories came naturally in a Communist movement that had seen Stalin launch trials of plotters ...”

“... or country might have been problematic. If the Oxbridgey Trads had a philosophical pin-up it was Bertrand Russell, with Freddie Ayer for real deep kicks; Mods backed the darker horse of existentialism. How much the Mod crush on continental philosophy was a pose, and how much serious engagement, is a moot point. Even as ‘mere’ pose it’s a very ...”

“... for me the consequences of such a proof being valid. Independently of this, I had been reading Bertrand Russell’s diaries and I wanted to write a story which would somehow illustrate the way diary writing, in its selectivity, closely resembles fiction writing. Thirdly, I wanted to write about the collision of two intellectual worlds. In 1972 I bought a ...”

“... professor and editor of Mind, the leading trade journal, decided the book was unworthy of review. Bertrand Russell – whom Gollancz, ever the enterprising publisher, had persuaded to write a sympathetic preface – sent a letter to the Times denouncing this as a form of professional censorship. The usual squall in a correspondence-column teacup followed (the ...”

“... have been persuaded to contribute an epitome here – such as Roy Foster on Yeats or Ray Monk on Bertrand Russell – and some leading literary scholars have similarly written about their favourite critical subjects, such as Christopher Ricks on Tennyson or Marilyn Butler on Jane Austen. There are one or two notable absences among historians who have written ...”