“... think Aides should be forbidden to write books about their Generals.’ Even Eisenhower’s lady driver stuck her pen into Monty. The major onslaughts came in the memoirs of the American generals themselves, provoking more-in-sorrow letters of protest from the field-marshal. In Britain, however, the legend of his leadership remained inviolate. It was a ...”

“... more momentous than suppressed desire, a suppressed memory of suppressed desire, for the young lady, glimpsed fleetingly from the rear as she left the premises ...’ His slippery ellipsis. For all the pipe-smoking persona, this is Harris twee. William Empson is praised for magnanimous agility on one page, and then on the very next page, à propos of ...”

“... offering new ways of handling awkward or challenging social situations. By the early 18th century, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu could write of the Duchess of Marlborough: ‘We continue to see one another, like two people that are resolved to hate with civility.’ Civil behaviour involved a mastery of both deference and superiority, the ability to please people ...”

“... just professional courtesy (or pious conformism). Why should it be ‘insightful’ to focus on Lady Catherine de Bourgh in order to ‘discover’ that Austen represents ‘a series of extremely powerful women each of whom acts out the rebellious anger so successfully repressed by the heroine and the author’, the latter of whom ‘quietly and forcefully ...”

“... nice melody, I like that.’ It happened when I was going to fetch you at the station, some young lady said: ‘Yes, I like to hear that.’ I’m sure that my musical quality is much greater than that of the girl who divorced me. I used to sing also in a choir, so I can have a good voice. My speaking voice is rather flat, but my singing voice is ...”

“... the existing regime. Duff Cooper, Liddell says, was ‘feeling rather bad’ because his wife, Lady Diana, was facing prosecution for accepting a free sack of stale bread for her pigs. More enlightening was the remark made to him by Churchill in May 1940 when France fell, and passed on to Liddell: ‘The end,’ Churchill is supposed to have said, ‘is ...”

“... Hannah’s first-person narrative on Esther Summerson, models the slave-owner Mrs Cosgrove on Lady Dedlock and takes the slave tracker Mr Trappe from Mr Tulkinghorn. As Robbins argues, passages are not copied or plagiarised; Crafts’s borrowings are highly skilled, and very aware of the differences between Bleak House and her own story. It is odd in the ...”

“... the unblemished genealogy of that personification. In Belfast, the same is true, save that the lady is now operating under the trade name of ‘Ulster’, and is equally indifferent to the claims to visibility of half a million Ulster Catholics. In some hell-mouth well stocked with munitions of war, draft begging letters, and receipts from the ...”

“... sister-in-law, Alyse Gregory, writes with some annoyance about the marriage: this American lady novelist, editor of the Dial, liked to take T.F. on country walks, with intellectual discussions, and complains that ‘he has had to live his life with a woman who shares none of his tastes, none of his thoughts ...’ Nevertheless, the slightly jealous ...”

“... together at writing, I’ll write comedies and you can write your dreams, and since there’s a lady who comes to see papa and always says stupid things I’ll write them too.’ At the age of ten, Flaubert signs off, ‘Your dauntless dirty-minded friend till death’. At 13 he is attacking theatre censorship and restrictions on press freedom: the ...”

“... director of the Royal College of Music, and on his liking for women students, especially a young lady who evidently became a musical power in Dublin, a pianist called Edith Oldham. The virtue-laden mutton-chop whiskers of Victorian photographs offer a great temptation to debunk. Grove had an unhappy marriage. His wife, he claimed, was cold and, worse, took ...”

“... audience was definitely not high-brow – indeed the former is a body whose usual faire is Lady Nairne’s songs or a demonstration of country dancing … one fat comfortable elderly wife … took every point in the most unexpected way … you certainly got them.’ Yet they are ill at ease with being rarefied: ‘I’m not really a literary ...”

“... for several years. Nevertheless, Thatcher went on to win elections in 1983 and 1987. Her the-lady’s-not-for-turning episode was an inspiration for Liz Truss during her short and calamitous stay in 10 Downing Street. Truss, unfortunately, wasn’t aware that on the issue of monetarism, the lady was for turning.It’s ...”

“... became more formalised in the early 20th century, and in 1915 the Waifs and Strays appointed a ‘lady visitor’ to check on girls after they left the homes. Children sent overseas (migration to Canada continued until 1930) were less well cared for and little effort was made to ensure they transitioned successfully into adult life. ‘I am doing ...”

“... Bacon. Buckingham renovated his homes at great expense and shared them with his wife, the heiress Lady Katherine Manners, daughter of the earl of Rutland. They had four children, three of whom survived. Buckingham invited Balthazar Gerbier, an architect and painter, into his household, and Gerbier began to amass an enviable collection of Italian and Dutch ...”