“... Street Mephistopheles: he stays the same whatever he writes. A Greene, though, or an Ian Fleming, may have to become what he writes, exemplify his own formula, with results that affect himself and others. Interestingly, unlike the cases of Shakespeare or Pushkin, the work of Greene or Fleming, and its appeal, comes increasingly to depend on the new literary ...”

“... individual and communal well-being. The evidentiary base began to expand enormously. Darwin may be seen as the beginning of a tradition – progressive and uncensorious – that construes sex as a natural phenomenon. Sir Patrick Geddes and J.A. Thomason’s popular volume, The Evolution of Sex, and Havelock Ellis’s massive Studies in the Psychology of ...”

“... of her achievement: ‘few writers of our time have been so organised for liberal, for – one may almost put it – heroic production.’ Even as James speculated on how ‘her remarkable life, and still more ... remarkable character’ might ‘lend itself to vivid portraiture’, he recognised how the very magnitude of her production would militate ...”

“... A job application posted through the unusual medium of a scholarly journal? I doubt it, but it may be that this essay found its way onto a desk at Penguin Books, leading to Cannadine’s appointment, in 1988, as general editor of the new Penguin History of Britain. Eight years on – two years longer than it took to commission and publish the entire series ...”

“... The Mandy Rice-Davies response is unlikely to be sufficient in such a setting, and we may find ourselves close to where we started, with adversarial blood-lettings between hired experts – unless the goal of judge-managed litigation really is made the predominant one. The trouble is that judges are not trained to be managers. They are not even ...”

“... by the time of the Boer War, after another century of imperialism and racialist indoctrination. It may be added that white men everywhere were remarkably free from any dislike of black concubines, but many of them lived under the shadow of fear of black retaliation in kind. It was an added trauma of the plantation world that, as Blackburn observes, there was ...”

“... warning: his history of metaphysics is not what you get in books on the history of philosophy. It may not be until page 379 that the penny will drop, for there Rée seems to say in passing that metaphysics consists of ‘the more or less unconscious myths, maxims and metaphors we live by’, Oh. One of the pleasures of the book is that its topics are made ...”

“... yet intrepidly New soothings, new amazements That cornets introduce at every turn – And you may fall downstairs with me With perfect grace and equanimity. Crane may be trying to tell us how we should read him, but the instructions are strewn with necessary impossibilities. To do anything with deliberate naivety ...”

“... that a combination of factors, including genetic predisposition, is involved, and that onset may be triggered by a virus. Like lupus and myasthenia gravis, two potentially fatal conditions, MS affects more women than men – the MS Society puts the ratio at 3-2. Susceptibility is thought to be partly related to climate: its incidence is much higher in ...”

“... in on the lowest worked-out seam. This graveyard on the brink of Beeston Hill’s the place I may well rest if there’s a spot under the rose roots and the daffodils by which dad dignified the family plot. If buried ashes saw then I’d survey the places I learned Latin, and learned Greek, and left, the ground where Leeds United play but disappoint their ...”

“... Carter’s political errors were legion: but his greatest sin, in the eyes of the American Right, may have been his recognition that the problems of the modern world are complex and that solutions are not simple. The dramatic role reversal of the two major parties – the Republicans now presenting themselves as the party of hope and the Democrats as the ...”

“... address is provided with a telephonic meaning in the form of a number. Fortunately, dictionaries may be not merely instruments of utility but also objects of delight. One recent addition to the ranks which can claim to offer more entertainment value than most is L.G. Pine’s Dictionary of Mottoes. Which householder among us has not had a gas cooker ...”

“... is big, impersonal, corporate and international. In a speech introducing Anti-Mafia legislation in May 1980, Pio La Torre observed: Mafia is a terrifying cancer ... that is, a network of relations. We have to find out where certain lines lead and what is behind them. Instead there is total darkness. Maybe we are afraid to reach out to touch something which ...”

“... revelation’, ‘inner light’ and ‘visible and sensible communion with the angels’ may be appealing as dogmas of dissent, but they are of little help as guidelines of organisation. Infuriatingly if predictably, Utopia turns out to be an objective more utopian than utilitarian. Not surprisingly, then, the names of sects like the ...”

“... before it appeared in print. The Adages also acted as an encyclopedia. ‘To bear the palm’ may not be much of an adage: for Erasmus it was a peg on which to hang a lot of interesting details about what the Ancients believed or did. Anyone with the Adages in his workroom can give the impression of knowing poets by the dozen and ...”