“... indeed it is one of the closest likenesses between him, Moll Flanders, Roxana and Colonel Jack that their lives are an almost unceasing exercise in problem-solving. ‘Family hierarchy’ also does not quite hit the nail on the head, for Crusoe’s thoughts tend to run more to political than to family sovereignty. Again, and more important, ‘slow ...”

“... age. A lady named Mrs Caine claimed that he had made improper advances to her. The joke went round London that she was certainly Cain but was he Abel? Nothing came of it, and Disraeli is supposed to have said that, if Palmerston dissolved Parliament on the question, he would sweep the country. Gladstone’s habit of accosting prostitutes in order to convert ...”

“... even if it does carry heavy significance. How many Conservatives would have rallied to the Union Jack in 1940 if Nye Bevan, not Churchill, had been prime minister? And was not the deep objection to the Falklands War among many on the left rooted in the fact that acceptance of the war meant accepting, at least temporarily, the leadership of Mrs ...”

“... to the success of the undertaking or the product sold. In the last decade, the quick way to jack up share prices was to sack people. To pluck an example from my own experience, when Mr David Montgomery was appointed chief executive of the Daily Mirror in 1992, he was immediately showered with share options. The price of the shares was relatively low at ...”

“... Party, whose devoted and canny networking saw Melville’s first book, Typee, into print in London shortly before his own death at the age of 30. Gansevoort had been Maria Melville’s favourite; she never quite forgave Herman for surviving (and not flourishing), when Gansevoort had been so clearly destined to restore the family’s fortune and ...”

“... first had been the sudden and unexpected death of his daughter Susy at 24 in 1896. Twain was in London when the news arrived, ‘standing in our dining room thinking of nothing in particular’. He describes the moment in the Autobiography (which he had taken up again in earnest in 1906). ‘A cablegram was put into my hand. It said: “Susy was peacefully ...”

“... of the original trials – ‘are often perceived as illogical or unfair’. In May 2010 two South London gangs, Shanks and Guns and the Sydenham Boys, confronted each other in a Sydenham park. After a burst of bravado, the Sydenham Boys retreated. As they were running off, a member of their gang, 16-year-old Nicholas Pearton, arrived in the park on his ...”

“... hotel, they seemed not to be certain why they were there or what lingo these chaps spoke. Under London’s cracked pavements, the ancient iron gas pipes were beginning to rupture. In hospital, I sat with a spinal probe jammed between my vertebrae while the consultant kicked the thirty-year-old control cabinet for breaking down. It certainly felt like ...”

“... turn back to much-earlier conceived but relegated plans for a similar multi-volume edition, so Ian Jack tells us in the General Introduction to the first volume, which has just appeared, and is devoted to Pauline and Paracelsus. Meanwhile John Pettigrew’s own admirable edition in two volumes, completed and supplemented by Thomas Collins, and published by ...”

“... dutiful regrets at the shadows or side effects of progress. Inside Putin’s Russia by Andrew Jack, the paper’s Moscow correspondent, illustrates the genre. Decent space is accorded the failings of the regime, and proper anxiety voiced about the future of liberties under it, without dwelling unnecessarily on these – ‘criticising without animosity ...”

“... next Top Ten single. Originally, the song was called ‘Cosh the Driver’, a callous reference to Jack Mills, the British Rail employee beaten with a metal bar during the robbery by one of Biggs’s gang – he never fully recovered, and died seven years later. Virgin baulked at that, and the single was released as ‘No One Is Innocent (A Punk Prayer by ...”

“... to sewage, millions of gallons of which had just been released from newly completed outflows for London’s waste. There isn’t much romance in an ordinary boat being rammed, sinking like a stone – with no time for heroism or cowardice or stories of any sort – and leaving survivors bobbing for a few minutes in shit. The Titanic and her sister ships, on ...”

“... Hirschman can have no pupils, only kindred spirits. It would be incorrect to say that he is a jack of many trades, but master of none, for in his ‘trespassing’ from one discipline to another he is indeed a master of the inventive analogy. He is a professional all-round amateur: his task is that of perceiving connections, and connections between ...”

“... sporadic. My notes on some of these visits were published in the 15th-anniversary issue of the London Review last autumn. Here are a few more. 5 August, Oxford. Most of the cast of the stage play are taking part in the film, though some of them in much smaller roles just for old times’ sake. I have been given the part of a loquacious MP who happens to be ...”

“... the Stage By Mr Theobald’. The 40-year-old Theobald was an attorney by training, and a literary jack-of-all-trades by profession, but his standing as a Shakespeare expert was high. The previous year he had published an impressive book, Shakespeare Restored, challenging what he saw as the errors and complacencies of Alexander Pope’s 1725 edition of the ...”