“... silks that don’t look too dusty. David Piper called it ‘the only existing humane portrait of a Lady Don’ and Harrison was pleased, thinking she looked ‘like a distinguished prize-fighter who has had a vision and collapsed under it’. Wade’s account of her life is in tune with the pugilism: a persuasive depiction of skirmish, idealism and ...”

“... from Low Latitudes. Impulsia had joined the fad for Egyptian travel and enjoyed an English lady’s usual adventures with camels, pyramids and cunning Orientals. Finally, she fell for the charms of a French aristocrat, Monsieur de Rataplan, and a sequel was promised that would detail the adventures of the lovestruck pair. It never materialised, for ...”

“... produced a little ring-casket, a memento that she had received that morning from the estate of Lady Ottoline Morrell. This must have been, allowing for the usual delay involved in probate, some time around the spring of 1939 – Lady Ottoline had died in the April of 1938. The foreheads of the two women almost touched as ...”

“... Actresses and society women were the first models; more risks could be taken with the actresses. Lady Diana Cooper and Viscountess Maidstone were photographed in contemplation and pearls, but Helen Lyons was captured backlit in a diaphanous white lace dress: as risqué and demure as Diana with the sun behind her legs. Muir has brought the original prints ...”

“... a moment for grief, or for hope of a new world to come? The abbey, dedicated to that same Lady Mary, was soon given over to demolition, not least by the townsfolk of Evesham, who were not displeased to acquire an apparently inexhaustible supply of good building stone. The 35 monks put down from their seats in the abbey choir were assured of a pension ...”

“... to challenge or rebut it effectively, and the others agreed that this was generally the position. Lady Hale and Lord Brown, however, appeared to accept, at least on one reading of their judgments, that if the closed material was so cogent that it appeared incapable of rebuttal, Article 6 could be satisfied even if the suspect had no knowledge of the nature of ...”

“... main character, Albert Campion, is a toff, but her female characters had proper jobs: Lady Amanda Fitton, Campion’s eventual wife, is an aircraft designer, and his sister, Val, worked in fashion, as we learn in The Fashion in Shrouds (great title). Val marries a good man, Alan Dell, with the following deal: he will take ‘full responsibility ...”

“... of 1976.It all began because Bloom put an advertisement in the Irish Times: ‘Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work.’ It seemed that this was code for something else. The letter Bloom received – he was using the pseudonym Henry Flower – from a woman called Martha Clifford in the Lotus-Eaters episode was suggestive: ‘I have ...”

“... were notable for riding cock-horses and having no clothes on (or perhaps that was some other fine lady), and very little suggested that a bohemian life might be there for the having. I had some hope of a café that was disapproved of by the grown-ups, but events overtook me. I hadn’t really understood how much my desired life depended on going to ...”

“... of Vienna in 1815. Britain’s Lord Castlereagh, the future suicide, was remembered at home by Lady Morgan for ‘his cloudless smile ... his untunable voice and passion for singing all the songs in The Beggar’s Opera’. In Vienna he behaved like the Ulster Protestant he was, staying in with his wife and household on a Sunday to sing hymns to a ...”

“... just a photographer. He designed, too. Oklahoma, things like that.’ ‘I think it was My Fair Lady, maam.’ ‘Oh, was it?’ said the Queen, unused to being contradicted. ‘Where did you say you worked?’ She put the book back in the boy’s big red hands. ‘In the kitchens, maam.’ She had still not solved her problem, knowing that if she left ...”

“... enjoyed writing that. But they all came from different rungs of the social ladder. At the top was Lady Gregory, who had a big house and plenty of tenants; and then Synge, who had a small private income, as Beckett and Wilde did, and a memory of glory; and then Yeats, who worked all his life, not only for his living, but at making himself grander than he ...”

“... down and identifying a supporting cast of thousands. Did Shaw covertly admire a young Scandinavian lady at a tea-party given by one of his advanced admirers, Bertha Newcombe? Weintraub can tell us that Nellie Erichsen lived at 6 Trafalgar Studios, Manresa Road, Chelsea, illustrated several volumes of the ‘Highways and Byways’ series and translated a number ...”

“... ambiguity, the ambiguity of poetic language itself. Thus the Holocaust imagery in poems like ‘Lady Lazarus’ and ‘Daddy’, which Rose analyses in brilliant detail, has to be seen both in the contexts of Plath’s longtime political concerns and in relation to the traces in language and writing of her unconscious fantasies and her personal ...”

“... when remembering those times, often describing them as the best in their lives. Even the one old lady who hadn’t a good word to say about Wright coloured and became unwontedly animated at the memories of battles ...”