“... this without finding the secret service, Dreyfus’s superior officers and the former minister of war incompetent or much worse, and they weren’t going to do that. The verdict was rendered on 9 September 1899 and ten days later Dreyfus was formally pardoned for what he had not done. A year later an amnesty was declared that let the conspirators off ...”

“... for his work in Hollywood, Conrad tartly observes, combines ‘existential reprimand with a middle-class Philistine’s envy of the rewards’. Wherever you turn in this book Conrad sounds brisk, assured, giddy in his confident marshalling of terms, patterns, brisk, assured and misleading. He is anxious always to be dazzling, outrageous, ‘brilliant’ in ...”

“... from the state. The gatekeeper would be the doctor providing the sick note.Before the Second World War, sick notes were in widespread use by friendly societies – working-class organisations common in Britain from the late 18th century that offered sickness and funeral benefits to members who made regular contributions to a ...”

“... of the French left, with the humiliation of its two main pillars since the end of the Second World War, the PCF and the PS.From 1945 until the late 1970s, the PCF had dominated left-wing politics in France. Polling between 20 and 25 per cent at legislative elections, it could rely on a dense network of societies and charities aimed at supporting working-...”

“... in 1948 to read medicine. In due course he switched to literature and graduated with a second-class degree. Achebe is not exactly self-effacing but his demeanour makes him seem so; a soft-spoken man, modest to a fault, gently pushing a liberal humanist agenda. When I met him in 1962 at a conference of African writers I wrote in the Guardian that he looked ...”

“... theory. Some analysts attribute this to the demographic contraction of the traditional working-class base, some to the lack of appeal of collectivist and socialist values, and yet others to the apparent dominance of sectarian extremists in the Party, particularly in local government. Whatever the combination of reasons for Labour’s loss of appeal, the ...”

“... in Bringing Up Baby, a leopard-skin dressing-gown in My Favourite Wife, full drag in I Was a Male War Bride. The more renownedly well-fitting his own clothes were, the funnier he was in someone else’s. In the Hitchcock film, the suit marks a turning-point: having been kidnapped, Grant (Roger Thornhill) is taken to a country house and interrogated by James ...”

“... in French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, or British Malaya and Singapore till after World War Two. From very early on, Rizal exhibited remarkable literary abilities. At the age of 19 he entered an open literary competition, and won first prize, defeating Spanish rivals writing in their native tongue. He was growing up at a time when modern politics ...”

“... in Le Havre: something of what life was like in that port of entry during the First World War, for a boy keen on identifying the nationalities and even the regiments of foreign soldiers disembarking in it, is to be gathered from the sixth of the novels included here, Un rude hiver. The boy Queneau came, for reasons that I don’t know he ever spelled ...”

“... of the poètes maudits. He was born in Salzburg in 1887, and grew up in a comfortable middle-class home. The picturesque, musical city is a constant presence in his cloying, Fin-de-Siècle early verse, some of which is included here: Ancient squares in sunlit silence. Deep engrossed in blue and gold Dreamlike gentle nuns are hastening Under sultry ...”

“... man, Banham became, like them, a celebrated outsider – a hit-man turned target. Born in working-class Norwich in 1922, Banham trained to be an aeronautical engineer, but failed the examinations and ditched the profession during the war. After a few years as a local art critic, he left for London in 1949, soon to study ...”

“... Wyatt was awarded a one-year contract for the then substantial salary of £2800, with ‘first-class travel throughout’. Within months, it was being remarked in newspapers that Wyatt’s melodramatic but pioneering location reports (‘To my right, are Africa and Egypt . . . Behind me is Gibraltar’) were making him more influential than he had been as ...”

“... So Rankin gave James Kelman’s first book to his father. His sort of thing, I thought. Working-class working man against the system. Dad couldn’t read it. Said it wasn’t ‘written in English’. Said there wasn’t any story. I was shocked. This was literature. It was good for you. It was the stuff I was studying. Dad’s reaction made me think about ...”

“... Howard and Gore had flown eastward from Rome on Singapore Airlines, at what seemed a bargain first-class rate, around the world.’ (That ‘seemed’ sounds suspicious. Did Howard and Gore mistakenly pay full fare?) Kaplan also keeps tabs on Vidal’s ground transport. ‘From Gulfport he took the bus back to New Orleans, from which at the end of February he ...”

“... who stole from him, or who tried to escape, despite the fact that, fighting in the American Civil War at an earlier stage of his career, he had himself deserted, twice – once from each side. He shot quite a lot of other Africans dead, usually because they objected to his marching through their countries with huge entourages, which made the Africans ...”