“... whose theories of historical development as a universal succession of stages, passing from hunter-gatherer to pastoral to agricultural to commercial forms of society, Scott absorbed from Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart and mapped onto his re-creation of the conflicts between Highlands and Lowlands, clan and capital, in Waverley and its sequels. It was ...”

“... from his voice when he talked of people who were “friends of his”. He was like a big-game hunter, proud of the carcasses, but doomed to have no relationship with the living animal.’When Toby first arrives in London, he is struck bythe scaffold stations. The cheated faces. The change of echo under the bridges. The sky crowding down close like grey ...”

“... he moved his studies to Guy’s Hospital. There he studied under Astley Cooper, a student of John Hunter and like his mentor an insatiable vivisectionist, and served as senior dresser to the ‘cack-handed surgeon’ William Lucas.Keats was recognised as an excellent student and practitioner. But by the time he had earned his apothecary’s licence – at his ...”

“... and organisation?’ But Treacher had pushed past as if she were a lowlier form of autograph hunter. ‘Not important,’ he said, though whether he meant he was not important or that it was not important his name be recorded was not plain. ‘I’ll put you under “and many other friends”,’ she had called after him, though in fact he had never met ...”