“... layer of Haffenden’s elucidations. Of course, the notes can’t always help much. Empson told Christopher Ricks in an interview that his poem ‘The Teasers’ developed in such a way that he began to dislike it; he ‘cut it down to rags so that it doesn’t make sense. You can’t find out what it is about ... But it’s a beautiful metrical ...”

“... animation. But Olamina dies before the starships actually take off. The first is called the Christopher Columbus, in spite of her objections. ‘This ship is not about a shortcut to riches and empire. It’s not about snatching up slaves and gold and presenting them to some European monarch. But one can’t win every battle. One must know which battles ...”

“... slavery, Haitian officials signed the document which was to prove the beginning of the end for any hope of autonomy. The French king agreed to recognise Haiti’s independence only if the new republic paid France an indemnity of 150 million francs and reduced its import and export taxes by half. The ‘debt’ that Haiti recognised was incurred by the slaves ...”

“... and not the real deal. Culture of Complaint may prove to be the most influential such screed since Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism. Hughes is much funnier than Lasch, and probably happier – his strings of metaphor are evidence that the author enjoys his work. Nimble yet lunkish, his sense of humour favours sarcasm and the well-turned ...”

“... are not a ‘zombie nation’ (Martin Amis), an undifferentiated mass of ‘racist dwarfs’ (Christopher Hitchens), but 24 million individuals, as virtuous and vicious as the rest of us, and just as keen on sweet and sticky snacks. The Choco Pie story also reveals a susceptibility to outside influence in a society commonly regarded as impenetrable. For ...”

“... acute dismay, William leaned a ladder against the garden wall up which he climbed in the hope of getting a sighting. He was unsuccessful, but they did meet subsequently during the visit, and even took tea, and although, as James reported, Chesterton merely ‘gurgled and giggled’, he apparently came across as ‘lovable’.Getting a glimpse of ...”

“... its history as ‘the pre-eminent sea-fighting force of the post-1500 world’, in the words of Christopher McKee, resonated still in school history books, comics and war films (Officer with mug: ‘Cocoa, sir?’ Officer with binoculars: ‘Good man, Number One!’). The most popular cigarette brands suggested that seagoing manliness and smoking were one ...”

“... was publicly burned in 1759. No one will call for the burning of Derrida’s book any more, I hope, for the anger with which deconstruction was first received in literary theory has abated, and philosophy departments remain largely indifferent. Furthermore, on the political scene today, at least in ‘Theory’, it is Heidegger who is at the stake, not ...”

“... political and criminal possibilities providing the principal subject of plays as diverse as Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (1592), Ben Jonson’s Sejanus, His Fall (1603-5), Philip Massinger’s The Roman Actor (1626) and John Ford’s Love’s Sacrifice (1632). According to Perry, this is in large part because the favourite made conveniently visible ...”

“... The question then arose of whether all this was no more than ‘colonial myth-making’, as Christopher Bayly put it in the 1990s. With Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s celebrated 1983 formula of ‘the invention of tradition’ in mind, it became common to accuse the British of having ‘discovered’ nothing and ‘invented’ everything in their ...”

“... he writes to Katharine White, ‘that Mr West’s review of Augie March is disgraceful … Let us hope that it is only my mental health that is endangered and not that of your readers as well.’ Two weeks later, he is putting on his best shirt for Lionel Trilling. ‘The many criticisms of Augie I’ve seen since have made me appreciate yours all the more; I ...”

“... persisted in the Communist underground opposition to Stalin. Long before Solzhenitsyn, as Christopher Hitchens wrote in 2011, ‘the crucial questions about the Gulag were being asked by left oppositionists, from Boris Souvarine to Victor Serge to C.L.R. James, in real time and at great peril. Those courageous and prescient heretics have been somewhat ...”

“... no stigma attaches to being a secret fantasy-snob and no one minds being bullied in a book. But Christopher Sykes, who saw much of Waugh in the Army, and who remained a warm friend, had to remark in his biography that ‘to the naturally weak he was as merciless as he had been in his bullying schooldays ... it always utterly disgusted me.’ Nonetheless ...”

“... Central to the Liberal faith was a belief in broadening the scope of reason in human affairs: the hope that a stable political system and a humane society would somehow emerge from a continuous susurration of public argument and discussion. Mid-Victorian left-wing Liberals saw the intellectual as society’s major safeguard against the bogey they ...”

“... is not in the popular English vocabulary) live in a separate world in this country. It judges that Christopher Fry has a place in conversation, but not Roger Fry, nor Elizabeth Fry. The spy Fuchs has a substantial entry, but whereas the Macmillan Encyclopedia adds ‘his motives were idealistic,’ Pan considers it wiser to leave out that possibly unpatriotic ...”