“... of Augusta’s patron Stephen Van Renssalaer, mad Cousin Harry Crosby, the subject of Geoffrey Wolff’s Black Sun.) Why is Parker telling us all this? Because he can, because he knows it, because he thinks we should know it; and no editor at Johns Hopkins dared tell him different. He is so extraordinarily learned, so indefatigable and cherishing ...”

“... and Barbara Johnson), but also linked to other Yale critics, notably Harold Bloom, Peter Brooks, Geoffrey Hartman and Fredric Jameson. In the decades since then, Miller’s work has continued to evolve, often along paths marked out by Derrida. (Derrida moved from Yale to Irvine in California when Miller moved there in the mid-1980s.) In such books as The ...”

“... adapted to the moment. In this respect dear old Robin in the 1960s Batman TV series was one of the best swearers, though his lips were never soiled with a common-or-garden profanity. He could combine ‘Holy’ with more or less anything in order to create his trademark ejaculations, which were always to the point. Number two in my list of all-time favourites ...”

“... invasion of Iraq? For an answer, Davis quotes a 1995 article by the Fort Leavenworth researcher Geoffrey Demarest: potentially the ‘dispossessed’ in general; ‘excluded populations’ everywhere; ‘criminal syndicates’; slum children coming of age (ripe for child soldiering as religious martyrs or warlord cannon fodder). In short, the extremely poor ...”

“... her old Rolls-Royce with a newer model. ‘No,’ she said,‘ it refers to something in my past best forgotten.’ The number was PM6450, which Larkin interpreted as ‘Princess Margaret 6 April 1950’. Could this be the day she lost her virginity? If so, a sporting flourish, to say the least. Brown does not mention the persistent report that Rosemary was ...”

“... with an adjective: ‘sinister’ and ‘Machiavellian’ used to be two of the most common. As Geoffrey Elton wrote in 1953, ‘We do not call a man sinister whom we know well, whether we like him or not.’ But Elton merely restates the problem. How do we get to know Thomas Cromwell in the first place? The answer is by a painstaking forensic recovery of ...”

“... her work at Gazelli Art House earlier this year. Both have covers featuring Boty with one of her best-known paintings, With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo (1962). On the Gazelli book she sits below it, wearing a high-necked dress and looking down coyly at the cat on her lap. On Kristal’s she is in front of it, staring straight out, naked. Boty saw parallels ...”

“... and mainly concern the people of the county, who have the right to choose those whom they think best fitted to represent them in their local government bodies, such representatives may be trusted to understand their own requirements better than judges. Now this is a marvellous if implicit definition of where judges fit in the modern democratic process, as ...”

“... shared an insomniac watch over words. The uses to which Housman has been put are something else. Geoffrey Hill noted that ‘the century-long chronicle of the varied fortunes of A Shropshire Lad is not without its grotesqueries,’ and these are among Parker’s themes. His title is itself a challenge, with its air of Heritage ersatz. Housman was averse to ...”

“... bibliography, and respectful salutations from across the literary scene: Dylan Thomas emerged best from the exercise, warmly praising ‘a wide and deep poet’ before adding, impishly: ‘Congratulations on Auden’s seventieth birthday.’ He did indeed seem senior beyond his years. The issue had a double-page Faber advert, on one side of which were ...”

“... The two nominated by Lonrho – on the advice of Lord Shawcross (of whom more later) – are Geoffrey Cox, a former editor and chief executive of Independent Television News, and Dame Rosemary Murray, a former Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and a director of the Midland Bank. The two nominated by the staff are Lord Windlesham, a former Tory ...”

“... or directs itself to celebrating their actuality and (more especially) their value. Even at best, it seems able to accord their importance only notional rather than real assent. This applies even to the recent movement in American ‘literary studies’ which takes deconstruction as the very theme and method of criticism precisely because it mistrusts ...”

“... of The Habit of Art. It’s a sharp and energetic performance, matinée audiences often the best and today’s helped because there are thought to be at least 130 blind people in the audience. Some of them have been up on the stage beforehand to familiarise themselves with the layout, handle the props and meet the cast, all of which helps to focus ...”

“... reluctance to go into unpleasant things, her desire to tell the truth and still acquit herself as best she can for her part in what she knows to be a frightful tale – all this the author renders with sympathetic accuracy. Malick has compared Holly to Nancy Drew or Tom Sawyer as an ‘innocent abroad’. Badlands was loosely based on the case of Charles ...”

“... their way. There was an election coming within 18 months and if she lost it they might spend the best years of their political lives in opposition. Meanwhile, if Heseltine won, many of them would be out in the cold anyway. ‘The elders of the tribe, and most of its leading younger members too, wanted a quiet life and their own collective advancement. They ...”