“... of the costume code defining the ‘normal’ woman. In Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Advanced Lady’, straitlaced German feminists denounce women who smother their femininity under what one calls the ‘English tailor-made’ and another the ‘lying garb of false masculinity’. Discreetly masculine garb adorns a long line of fictional women from the ...”

“... was much in fashion at that time. It provided the most passionate coupling enjoyed by Mellors and Lady Chatterley, and their story was being written at the very moment these discussions were going on. Breton’s revulsion at the thought of sexual congress between males was certainly no simple gut reaction, whatever unconscious motives he may or may not have ...”

“... the small boy who asks: ‘Mamma, is that alive? ... I want that, mamma, I want that dear little lady.’ There are moments when nastier desires enter, as Miss M is followed down a village street, and sees on some of the watching faces ‘an expression that was not solely curiosity ... a kind of hunger, a dog-like gleam’. But for the most part the ...”

“... their fierce free market policies in Chile. Again in March, Pinochet was able to meet his admired Lady Thatcher, at a British Embassy cocktail party, when she was in Santiago to promote her book: she congratulated him on local television for anticipating her own economic reforms. In Italy, Northern League members of Silvio Berlusconi’s cabinet recently ...”

“... To call this book one-eyed would be an overstatement. If Brecht had ever in his life helped an old lady across the road (doubtful, but still), don’t look for an account of the circumstance in Fuegi; but if someone somewhere had accused him of eating babies, it would be there in the index: ‘babies, B.B. eater of’. Things are used only inasmuch as they ...”

“... censorships, even within libertine literature. Smell hardly figures in the ‘liberating’ Lady Chatterley’s Lover (one coy reference to all men being ‘dogs that trot and sniff and copulate’ is all I can find), despite Lawrence’s avowed ‘hygienic’ aim to demolish his countrymen’s sexual inhibitions. I seemed to remember that Orwell’s ...”

“... Hellenic and Gallic sense, bien entendu, in the sole sense in which it exists for the admirers of Lady Windermere’s Fan and of The Importance of Being Earnest, etc. Presumably there was no point in appealing to James himself, since he called Wilde an ‘unclean beast’ and refused to sign a clemency petition. There were closer friends who shunned ...”

“... is a reference to his attending a suffragettes’ meeting in 1906: he does not say whether the lady who declared, ‘We have committed the crime of being born woman,’ was aware that the author of Tess was in the audience. In the late letters – Volume Seven prints those of Hardy’s last two years – there are some vivid glimpses of the distant ...”

“... life that I met Mr Campbell Johnston was one afternoon when I went to make certain proposals to a lady who became my wife. You can imagine that I did not welcome Mr Campbell Johnston’s presence and that I said the most wild and provocative things in order to drive him from the room. I well remember the feeling of desperation as I uttered one absurd and ...”

“... Japanese forms of the story, Callas’s performance in La Traviata in Mexico City in 1951, and The Lady of the Camellias by Dumas fils: all these are brought into relation with the tale of an ancient woman, Señora Consuelo, who entices a young scholar, Felipe, to live in her house on the pretext that he should edit her long-dead husband’s memoirs. In fact ...”

“... who soon started an affair with her principal man and allowed Max to slip gracefully away. The lady he eventually married, Florence Kahn, American and Jewish, was also an actress, with a solid kindly family home in Memphis. Shy and refined, she found her chosen profession agonisingly difficult, but was intense and moderately successful in the role of ...”

“... There were occasional moments in Elegies when something went wrong. The line ‘How well my lady used her knife and fork!’ was awkward because too Literary. And Dunn in Northlight celebrating his ‘Moonpuddled water, mystic Firth’ again treads dangerously close to Higher Things. I admire this book for its scope, which reaches to Australia and ...”

“... only when she dies, though ‘C’ and ‘D’ make it clear that she fully merited her title ‘Lady of the Mercians’). Alfred’s statesmanlike diplomacy is completely successful, except for one outburst of indignation from the ‘A’ chronicler which gives the game away. These queries make the Chronicle more interesting and potentially more valuable ...”

“... to The Master Builder and When We Dead Awaken. Already, Ferguson has cast the characters of Lady from the Sea as Ibsen’s wife and sister-in-law, their father and mother, and a demon lover from the mother-in-law’s otherwise exemplary youth. Now, armed with the story of a young woman entering the home of an ageing creator and promising him a ...”

“... with whom he mingles after it; a large part of the value of the work is that it encompasses Lady Huntercombe’s dance, as well as the vissicitudes of the small magazine Fission, the aspirations of Mona Templer the would-be starlet, and the military dreams of Roland Gwatkin the bank employee. A glimpse at Hilary Spurling’s wonderful Invitation to the ...”