“... tells much the same story as that given by Elisabeth Murray (Caught in the Web of Words, 1977) and Peter Sutcliffe (in his 1978 ‘informal history’ of OUP), from their biographical and house-historical perspectives. Willinsky’s Murray, however, is less the innocent gnome in his funny hat in the scriptorium at the bottom of the garden in the Banbury ...”

“... not appeal to those who find twists in the tail meretricious and prefer the sort which not only peter out but peter in. Yet it is impossible not to admire the craftsmanship, the precision, the unerring selection of the right asp from the basket to do the lethal job. As Self says, ‘Arresting metaphor follows terse ...”

“... of these Russian billionaires had wined and dined European and American leaders and officials. Peter Mandelson, then the EU trade commissioner, and George Osborne, the future chancellor, spent some time on the aluminium mogul Oleg Deripaska’s yacht Queen K off the coast of Corfu in 2008. Queen K, later renamed Clio and now renamed Altair, was in the ...”

“... not a two-volume Bible but a single-leaf, 31-line indulgence, printed on vellum by Gutenberg and Peter Schoeffer in 1454, and issued at Erfurt. It is a slight, narrow printed strip with blank spaces left for the date, name and town, which would be added by hand before the indulgence was shown to a confessor to secure forgiveness. The real purpose of the ...”

“... a composite image of action shots of the star players, with Michel Platini – the undisputed king of European football – in pride of place. Everyone (well, almost everyone) had the Panini sticker album and was blowing all their pocket money trying to complete it. There was a lot of pre-tournament interest in the South Korean team – they’d qualified ...”

“... fabrics and hangs upside down in the Hayward’s brutalist stairwell, arms extended like Saint Peter, tiny round breasts protruding. High up, over a doorway, Legs (2001) is a cluster of three enormous red patchwork limbs suspended from metal wires; in the centre of another room hangs Spiral Woman (2003), faded black fabrics stuffed and sewn in a spiral ...”

“... Mixed moments of mythology. Virgil’s Iliad with the Greeks inside the burning city. Was it Troy? King Priam meeting his murderer and calling him a ‘degenerate’, a word I didn’t know in English, let alone in Latin. But I continued construing as far as the Death of Dido. Thirty years before, the late Richard Martineau, D.P. Simpson or Oliver Hunkin ...”

“... hinged double set, trying to throw the baby Jesus across the intervening frame at the kneeling king on the left? And why was I supposed to care about the mustard-coloured pot on the mustard-coloured table with the mustard-coloured dead sunflowers in it? Pictures were another matter. You could imagine living with pictures; my parents’ house had pictures ...”

“... took him for a cattle rustler, whipped him and chased him away. Fridolin complained to Clovis, king of the Franks, and returned with a signed charter granting him the island, as well as two messengers who threatened any dissenters with immediate execution.Fridolin established a nunnery, but he needed funding for the abbey. Things seemed to look up when ...”

“... denounced any adoption by Catholics of practices which might be thought Protestant. In Germany, Peter Canisius wrecked the proposal to introduce Catholics to communion in both kinds which had been asked for by Catholic emperors and princes and approved by Pope Pius IV. In Sweden, Antonio Possevino thwarted the attempt of ...”

“... up in the Thirties – in my case, in the late Thirties. I arrived at Westminster School, as a King’s Scholar, in September 1936. The King’s Scholars lived in a house of their own called College, and I looked forward to the experience. For the reality I turned out to be totally unprepared. I was a prig. I was ...”

“... imaginary woodlands, developing and expanding material from earlier lectures and essays. As Peter Holland’s eloquent afterword reminds us, Barton’s interest in the topic had first been excited by her reading of Ben Jonson’s Robin Hood play, The Sad Shepherd, for her monograph on Shakespeare’s great rival. Given this history, it may seem ...”

“... Lord of the Rings experience are about to be replaced with fast-food tie-ins (a deal with Burger King has been announced), a hit pop record, trading cards, furry backpacks. It is a strange reversal. Except that in a way it is not.Take a look at the Fellowship trailers, different versions of which can be downloaded from www.lordoftherings.net. The landscapes ...”

“... and, if Trump got elected, there would be a third volume provisionally titled ‘The Return of the King’.) ‘I think he’s the greatest poet of our generation,’ the man said.‘Why?’ I asked.‘I think he has done more to call attention to the use of the English language than anybody else in our time and he has been more creative with the ...”

“... fire arms, nor even to pass by him in the Chace’. At the Hôtel Matignon in Paris he met the King of Denmark and the Prince of Monaco, who called him a ‘silly Boy’ when he admitted to wanting to leave France and the service of the marquis for home. By the following year he’d changed his mind about leaving, though not for the reasons the prince had ...”