“... cubs were brought back from Cherie Island (just south of Greenland) by explorers and presented to King James, who delivered them into the keeping of Henslowe in Paris Garden on the Bankside. Grant’s argument was extended by Barbara Ravelhofer, writing in the spring 2002 issue of English Literary Renaissance. Both argued persuasively that the sudden ...”

“... febrile fits which were produced in the savant Erasmus at the sight of a plate of lentils? . . . King James II trembled at the sight of a naked sword: and the sight of an ass, if the chronicle of the time can be believed, sufficed to cause the Duke of Epernon to lose consciousness.’ Other stalwarts included Hobbes (fear of darkness), Pascal (fear of ...”

“... the early 20th century, the only English monarch who was both male and monogamous was probably King George III. Put the other way, this means that from Nell Gwyn to Mrs Keppel (and beyond), the courtesan was an integral part of royal history. But while much is known about such women as the Duchess of Portsmouth, Elizabeth Villiers, Henrietta Howard and the ...”

“... in the tradition of espionage literature (in a promotional video for Penguin he mentioned only James Bond and Mission Impossible). ‘I read very little,’ he explains, ‘so I have the audacity to write freely with no baggage.’ Decoded is far removed from any real-world spying, even though it was banned at first, under suspicion of containing – and ...”

“... as part of a series that included Seamus Deane, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Stewart Parker, James Simmons, and several other Northern Irish poets whose voices were beginning to raise themselves in the mid-Sixties. To hear John Carey now, almost a quarter of a century later, go farther still along that road of praise is consequently all the more ...”

“... He was irritated in July 1830 by another revolution in France, which yet again disposed of the king. Worse, there was unrest in Britain. Hay-ricks were set on fire, and threatening messages from ‘Captain Swing’ sent to the owners of the land they were on. The duke and his ministers saw to it that culprits, guilty or not, were hanged or transported to ...”

“... on to Malta and then to England, where she arrived in June 1827 and was taken to Windsor. The king had her fed on a supposedly nourishing diet of milk, ordered a warm and commodious stable to be constructed for her comfort, and commissioned portraits of her from three painters. But she didn’t thrive. Her head began to droop and physicians were ...”

“... sons, familial deceit, guilt and hope, through the double prism of American religion and politics. James Wood once praised Robinson’s style for its ‘spiritual force’, derived from spare, unspotted Protestant exemplars. In the novels, plainness is a vehicle adequate to domestic grief and spiritual epiphany alike. Robinson’s precise style is tuned to ...”

“... Superman says with a mixture of pride and associative guilt – the creature is a cyber version of King Kong made of kryptonite. The new ally is tidy and resolute, looks like a fashion model who has been in the Israeli army, and not only because Gal Gadot, who plays the part, is a fashion model who was in the Israeli army. ‘I’ve killed creatures from other ...”

“... under dusk-to-dawn curfew, a result of the government’s siege of the palace of the Kabaka, or king, of Buganda, and the chaos that followed.Although Naipaul was 34, he seemed much older: opinionated, sure of himself, set in his ways, adversarial, moody, domineering. We were soon on good terms, but it was not a friendship between equals. He had an ...”

“... celebrations last year for another milestone of Stuart English prose composition, the King James Bible, and although I was surprised by the large amount of public interest shown in that commemoration, I doubt whether the Prayer Book will have such an impact. Many will regard it simply as a tribal occasion for a particular Christian ...”

“... in whose work ordinariness achieves a highly individual and idiosyncratic literary status – James Joyce and Italo Svevo. Growing older, a bit despondent, never feeling quite well – these are the symptoms of Svevan man which we all recognise, and from which we suffer ourselves. The Svevan ordinary man belongs to no recognisable social category. Neither ...”

“... these other cultures, and going pathetically overboard for their way of seeing. If he subjects the King of Brobdingnag to a blast of chuckle-headed English chauvinism, he is also foolishly proud of the title the Lilliputians bestow on him, and indignantly rebuts a charge of having had sex with a female only a few inches high. To embrace cultural otherness too ...”

“... on’, which can be read as ‘Goon’. Wells wondered whether jokes like that irritated Garter King-at-Arms. Not at all, Garter said, ‘I happen to think that’s rather nice.’ The next chapter sees Mrs Thatcher being led into the Lords for ennoblement, with Garter commanding ‘Sit!’ at the appropriate moment (‘I was amazed. She ...”

“... explore the borderlands on foot, in the hope of finding some essence of Britishness in the region James VI and I had described as the ‘navel or umbilic of both kingdoms’. While Stewart set out on his quest with undisguised polemical intent, ‘to show that there were no permanent differences between England and Scotland, between my cottage in Cumbria and ...”