“... that frightfully dreary thing in the East End?’ At the end of Carousel at the National Theatre, Richard Eyre escorts her to the door: ‘I’m glad you enjoyed the show.’ ‘I didn’t, I can’t bear the piece.’She was just as rude and inconsiderate in private, late to arrive and even later to leave which meant that nobody else could leave ...”

“... making’ of Sir Arthur Bryant’s three-volume life – that is, a sort of apprentice Pepys only. Richard Ollard’s Pepys (1974) is less strangely proportioned from this point of view, but again there is a deliberate attempt to set the familiar Pepys in a context of broader aspiration and achievement. Much of the new Companion volume rehearses the findings ...”

“... the US as a sinister maritime republic with an all-powerful navy (Ahab is a fighting Quaker like Richard Nixon), Marvell hints at what the future may hold for a Commonwealth that has no institutional continuity. The theme of wounded male narcissism – the mower on a hot day mown, self-injured – may be one way of giving imaginative shape to what it feels ...”

“... odd little book is eventually going to turn into a mock-judicial arraignment of the great lover. Richard Aldington (The Romance of Casanova) likewise adopts a God’s eye-view, makes Balbi a lay figure called Marco and invents a barmy alternative outcome whereby Casanova is recaptured and brainwashed. Sabatini, who as a gifted linguist could have worked ...”

“... Shawcross concentrated on international intervention, from the American bombing ordered by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to the uses of international aid and sanctions during the Vietnamese occupation. Martin, on the other hand, has spent her career dissecting Cambodian society from within, always using a French historical framework. When she ...”

“... to wobble somewhat as to the chops.)’ To this and other tips and observations the long-suffering Richard Ryder replied, poker-penned: ‘The contents of your correspondence have been carefully noted,’ and – doubts obviously stirring – returned Henry’s usual enclosure of £1 ‘with best wishes as always’. The Further Letters of Henry Root, in other ...”

“... notes on how the votes were going to be cast. He was described by one opponent as ‘Warwick the king-maker’, and those who wished to advance their careers certainly felt it necessary to keep on good terms with him. In the volumes under review the young John Constable makes several appearances. Farington gave him good advice about not taking a dead-end job ...”

“... on three explosive issues almost simultaneously. There was the situation in Jordan, where King Hussein was confronting not only the rebellious Palestinian element in his own country but also the threats of his bellicose neighbours, Iraq and Syria. There was the clumsily surreptitious attempt by the Soviet Union to establish a nuclear submarine base in ...”

“... in keeping with the neoclassical taste of the time, interspersed with a heavily adapted version of King Lear and Mrs Siddons’s much admired Lady Macbeth. On the new larger stages, selection was made on the basis of scenic opportunities. Henry VIII enjoyed a vogue, as did Colley Cibber’s version of Richard III, famous for ...”

“... has his lieutenants stand by his bedside every morning waiting for orders, as if he were the Sun King. During the wars, he funded all sides and sold arms in all directions, so that – unlike most other Lebanese politicians – he was never seen as a militia leader. As a branding campaign, it obviously worked: Hariri was forced out of office between 1998 and ...”

“... subject: ‘“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice. “I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too!”’ We notice that Holt has begun to turn his deep question in an unexpected direction. ‘Why is there something rather than nothing, because there is, and we’d better ...”

“... to Macbeth, Caesar to Brutus. Greenblatt adds to these the ghosts who appear in dreams, notably in Richard III; but I think this is a red herring, as is his introduction of the nightmares of German Jews at the coming to power of Hitler – a rare case, here, of the presentism which has been a worry in Greenblatt’s other works. So to Hamlet, and ‘Remember ...”

“... served in a number of ministerial roles before losing his seat in 2019; and the attorney general, Richard Hermer KC, a barrister appointed from full-time practice at Matrix Chambers.The published list of ministerial appointments included an asterisk against the outsiders’ names with a footnote recording that the ...”

“... to be British.I’m glad we got that sorted out. Meanwhile, the heart refuses to break at news of Richard Branson’s fortune shrinking by 42.6 per cent to £2.4 billion. Alex Chesterman – once of Planet Hollywood, now of planet Earth – has seen the value of his online car retailer, Cazoo, sink by 99 per cent. It turns out that the prime minister, Rishi ...”

“... metre and little deaths of rhyme. Hecht stands with the strongest formal poets of his generation, Richard Wilbur and James Merrill, who accepted Auden’s legacy and for the most part worked ravishingly within the boundaries it set. There were free-verse poems over the years, but not many, and they were rarely among his best. Hecht’s most personal work is ...”