“... between the orchestra and the conductor, Hans von Bülow, grew strained: Franz Strauss, father of Richard and the brilliant first horn of the Munich orchestra, had a blazing row with von Bülow, stomped out of the pit and had to be coaxed back. Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, who sang Tristan to his wife’s Isolde, caught a chill on stage and subsequently ...”

“... CIA. The Senate had convened an inquiry into CIA misconduct, and even the fanatical cold warrior Richard Nixon had promoted détente with the Soviet Union and opened a diplomatic door to China. One could be pardoned for hoping that a reorientation of policy was underway.But almost as soon as the last helicopter left the roof of the American Embassy in ...”

“... model for the first of the parables, ‘From the Republic of Conscience’, was an American poem, Richard Wilbur’s ‘Shame’. As for Harvard itself, his remarks about it are funny, fair and consistent with my memories of his teaching: in selecting the students for his classes, ‘what I wanted was evidence of their artistic doings’ rather than ‘the ...”

“... to Crete or Vienna, then jetting off to America on publicity tours or visiting Dublin to work with Richard Burton on the film of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. In time, it ruined his marriage. Cornwell became passionately involved with the writer James Kennaway and his wife, Susan, a glamorous couple described by one friend as ‘Scott and Zelda, with ...”

“... I suppose because the rasping quality in his voice echoed Auden’s harsh tones. However, because Richard Griffiths was available and indeed anxious to play the part, the role went to him. Emergency casting sessions such as the one Gambon knew we were holding are always mildly hysterical and often very funny as assorted names (often wildly unsuitable) are put ...”

“... ideas they’re objecting to as much as the words. That was certainly the case in the furore over Richard Eyre’s film version of Harrison’s poem V. when it was shown on Channel Four with none of its expletives deleted.* Campaigners against the film claimed to be horrified by its vulgar tongue but the vulgarity of the author’s origins and politics were ...”

“... angles’, we see people and events from his point of view. This means, not least, giving full weight to the interplay of politics and religion at a period when there was no meaningful way of separating them. Trinitarianism was as much a subject of division and debate at the dinner table as republicanism. To be a Dissenter was to have a political ...”

“... have disliked anyone holding power. The episode of 1521, when Wolsey is alleged to have packed Richard Pace off to Rome, has been misunderstood, for Pace was glad to go on his embassy, and his subsequent breakdown, normally blamed on the cardinal’s ruthlessness, merely shows how unreliable are the charges Pace brought against him. The Duke of Norfolk ...”

“... And they became even more reconciled to spending the nation’s money on war after 1714, when the weight of taxation began to shift markedly from land to commodities. To collect their taxes, Britain’s rulers, unlike many of their Continental counterparts, did not depend on private tax-farmers who creamed off for themselves as well as the ...”

“... some recent scepticism. New attention has been paid to the political ambiguity of the class, and Richard Hamilton has argued that the Nazi electoral base owed less to the petty-bourgeoisie and more to the bourgeoisie proper than previously assumed. He analysed electoral districts and also made imaginative use of voting returns from fashionable holiday ...”

“... hosts is called Through the Looking-Glass, and its pilot episode features Jonathan Miller and Richard Gregory talking animatedly about mirrors and doubles, both of which figure prominently in A Whistling Woman’s own symbolic repertoire. (As she did in Babel Tower, where she brought on Anthony Burgess as a witness for the defence in her fictional ...”

“... Ladd-Taylor and Umansky – wrote into law many of the recommendations made by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein in their book The Bell Curve, in which they charged that single motherhood correlates positively with child poverty and crime, and urged that welfare benefits be taken away as a disincentive to further childbearing. ‘While more affluent women ...”

“... areas has become more widespread in Nabokov studies recently, thanks in large part I suspect to Richard Rorty’s work on the writer in his book Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, and in his excellent introduction to the Everyman edition of Pale Fire. (In the case of the Everyman Lolita, incidentally, somebody seems to have had a rush of blood to the ...”

“... by the way you look up to them; and if you devote yourself to making this impression, it will give weight and seriousness to your life, lending it meaning in your own eyes and leading to your advancement.’ There is no written evidence to suggest that Jeffrey Archer has ever read Thomas Mann. One of the many striking aspects of his career, however, is the way ...”