“... Satyamurthy (‘the wise one’), henceforth known to all as Satyam, was five and his brother, William Carey, was two. Their sister, Mary Manjulabai, was born in Vizag. The parents got jobs as teachers in Christian schools and earned enough to rent a modest apartment. The landlord was a caste Hindu and so they lied, claiming they had converted to ...”

“... It isn’t Salter’s language alone that numbers him among the masters, but it is what strikes you first. From Light Years of 1975: ‘On the stands in nearby orchards were hard, yellow apples filled with powerful juice. They exploded against the teeth, they spat white flecks like arguments.’ From the story ‘Am Strande von Tanger’, on the death of a bird: ‘A heart no bigger than an orange seed has ceased to beat ...”

“... of Interior Decoration was once again made available, after being out of print for a decade. William Weaver’s English translation of La Filosofia dell’ Arredamento was first published in 1964, which means that there were about ten years when you could buy it new, and then about ten years when you couldn’t. No doubt it was obtainable second-hand if ...”

“... Westminster. At school they trotted out elegiacs for the vanity volumes printed regularly by their masters; at Oxford and Cambridge they contributed panegyrics or genethlaica to the volumes routinely churned out by the Universities whenever anyone famous died or had a child. Even the authors of these volumes had a suspicion that what they were producing was ...”

“... committed than Jonson to the royalist or ‘court’ party. Shakespeare had at least one patron (William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke) with substantial Puritan affiliations. He himself must have been aware that the public theatres had enemies – and supporters – in both the Puritan and Anglican camps. Miss Heinemann sets out to distinguish Puritan ...”

“... Hechters’ life undergoes a radical change. Rex Smail-Turner, one of High Hampton’s bachelor masters, accompanies young Jules home one Christmas, and quickly sets about ingratiating himself with the family. His success is complete. Henriette falls in love with him, and since he is already her husband’s lover, they establish a ménage à trois. With ...”

“... rattles, have been. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), founded in 1877 by William Morris and others, had long opposed proposals to alter or destroy remnants of the past. The listing of historical buildings began in 1882, but intensified after 1945 and was greatly extended in the 1980s. The Vernacular Architecture Group, formed in ...”

“... to that of You Can’t Win, Jack Black’s crim chapbook from 1926, which introduced the jejune William Burroughs to the outlaw lifestyle. The Badge is a breathlessly ingenuous account of Los Angeles’s competitive and notoriously corrupt law enforcement agencies in the 1940s and 1950s. Describing the last hours of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short – the ...”

“... throwing doubt on the other prime suspect, a ‘would-be wit and self-serving layabout’ called William Hatchett – which leaves Hatchett with a single surviving claim to fame, as author of A Rehearsal of Kings … with the Unheard of Catastrophe of Macplunderkan, King of Roguomania, one of the anti-ministerial farces that provoked the Theatrical Licensing ...”

“... changes of alliance and of internal regimes that characterised Italian politics he served many masters, but he was more consistent in his loyalties and changed sides for cash offers less often than most of his fellow captains. Between 1363 and 1368 he fought principally in the employ of the republic of Pisa, between 1368 and 1372 principally in that of ...”

“... named Hyglac. When Harold was killed at Hastings, the canon who went to beg the body from William was Ailric the ‘Childemaister’ of Waltham. And among the many works of Aelfric of Cerne, and later of Eynsham, were the first Latin grammar written in Old English, and a Latin Colloquy that was designed as a simple text for use in school; it was later ...”

“... they unmask their batteries, and we find that we are actually in the hands of General Sir William Jackson, GBE KCB MC MA, and Field Marshal Lord Bramall KG GCB OBE MC JP (JP indeed!). No artillery comes heavier than that. The title is also a little misleading: our generals tell the story, not just of ‘the United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff’, as they ...”

“... name for my own blueberry-loving toddler than the jubilant More Fruit. In 1603 the antiquary William Camden cited the new practice among the gentry of using surnames as first names, pointing to Grevill Varney, Bassingburne Gawdy and Calthorp Parker: ‘Although many dislike it, for the great inconvenience that will ensue … neverthelesse it seemeth to ...”

“... along with his copy of the Columbian Orator.After hearing Douglass speak for the first time, William Lloyd Garrison, the Liberator’s editor, wrote that he was ‘one in intellect richly endowed – in natural eloquence a prodigy – in soul manifestly “created but a little lower than the angels”’. Overnight he became a poster boy for the ...”

“... several of the fair Ideas of Greece are fixed for ever in marble, and the paintings of the first masters are indeed most inchanting objects. How little however of these suffices? how unessential are they to life? And surely not of that Importance as to set the whole world, man woman and child a-gadding. I should be sorry to be Goth enough not to think them ...”