“... in his objectivity: I find that I cannot reasonably believe any of his descriptions of persons unknown to me, and his history is written largely in terms of personalities as causes. The least unconvincing, and the most interesting, section of the book seems to me to be the account of Franco’s policies in ...”

“... explain why Leskov, a writer with claims to be regarded as Tolstoy’s or Dostoevsky’s equal, is unknown outside Russia. Here, however, the dialogue is not so specifically Russian as to be untranslatable: that, perhaps, is the weakness of the story, in that the situation could be that of a Molière play or a Wodehouse novel. Ignat Avsey’s ear is usually ...”

“... be the value that it has been for us. And here again I touch on my problem, on our problem, my unknown friends (for as yet I know of no friend): what meaning would our whole being possess if it were not this, that in us the will to truth becomes conscious of itself as a problem? As the will to truth acquires self-consciousness – there can be no doubt ...”

“... that most men dislike Felix, ‘especially married men and homosexuals’. Clover’s mother is unknown to the daughter for her first few years: in fact, she is the wife of a prosperous dentist and art-collector, very careful about her security. She had a fling with Jason and dumped the baby on him. Eleanor, living with Jason, begins to feel motherly toward ...”

“... it than are dreamt about in Dworkin’s philosophy, and stooping to conquer has not exactly been unknown. To try to present women as nothing other than powerless victims is a historico-sociological nonsense which profoundly degrades women. Maybe Dworkin is telling women that sex itself is slavery, a ‘self-mutilation’. Maybe female ‘desire’ is just a ...”

“... low origins of Maggs’s aspiring master, Mr Buckle, a fish frier who has come into money. (It is unknown to the OED, which, however, understands ‘Trafalgar chair’ in something like the same sense, rather vulgar furniture bearing mementoes of the battle.) There is quite a lot of contemporary slang, here not glossed, so you have to guess that a ...”

“... is packed with vitality, and then is abruptly over and done, roaring off into a chilly dark unknown, like sending a dog into space. It is typical of the books Bainbridge was writing in the 1970s, for her an improbably productive and artistically successful decade, in which she also published Harriet Said … (1972), The Dressmaker (1973), The Bottle ...”

“... it disrupts the promotion process – but politicians don’t dare refuse. Last November an unknown petitioner appealed to the Supreme Court to reject Bajwa’s latest demand. He then panicked and attempted to withdraw his appeal, but the chief justice insisted that the case be heard. The verdict came quickly. Bajwa was allowed a six-month ...”

“... friends – dancers, painters, actresses, poets, models, many of them queer – are today largely ...”

“... not thousands, of wells across the country, multiplying the political cost in order to extract an unknown quantity of gas to sell to a diminishing European market. Neither North Sea gas or shale gas could be produced in sufficient quantities to lower household bills significantly. The calls to drop the green levies don’t stand up to scrutiny either. Almost ...”

“... the Chinese-Cuban painter Wifredo Lam and the Brazilian painter Tarsila do Amaral, to the all but unknown. The curators are especially drawn to adventurous souls who understood Surrealism as a call to travel widely, sometimes on a quasi-ethnographic mission to encounter the other as a means to decentre the self à la Michel Leiris. In 1939 the Swiss-born ...”

“... UK would continue to enjoy pre-Brexit rights as vested rights, indefinitely or at all, is a great unknown. Many of the Leavers would claim to be tough on law and order. The Schengen Information System identifies EU nationals across the member states who are accused of crime and wanted in their home countries. The European Arrest Warrant makes it easy to ...”

“... of Remain, will mean playing against the Tories under new, untested rules. Of course, the greatest unknown of all is Boris Johnson, presently steamrolling towards power. It’s a by-product of our Brexit fixation that we are thinking more about his intentions towards the EU than about the future orientation of the Tory Party. I know this is probably a false ...”

“... a much larger work on expelling demons, describes ‘exactly what it was like to be visited by an unknown, unidentified ghost of the roaming, malicious hooligan type’. These ghosts ‘flicker like flame’ and ‘flash like lightning’, they cross the thresholds of houses and descend over the rooftops. They frighten, snarl at and otherwise torment the ...”

“... later, ‘when almost overcome by the ague had I crawled into the forest and been rewarded by some unknown and beautiful species!’ How could he bear their loss, let alone set out again soon afterwards on the hunt? At this point I hesitate between thinking of him as mad or heroic. Something like the buzz of discovery that McGavin and his colleagues can still ...”