“... 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 ...”

“... for granted by millions, including possibly the same 86 per cent of Americans who told the Larry King Show that they believed in aliens and almost certainly the proportion of that number who say that those aliens have the same supernatural abilities as Lucifer and the fallen angels. Today’s testimony doesn’t stretch that far. In fact, it’s fairly ...”

“... to explain the footnote he appended, in his 1765 edition of Shakespeare’s plays, to a passage in King John about shoes: – – – slippers, (which his nimble hasteHad falsely thrust upon contrary feet,) I know not how the commentators understand this important passage, which in Dr Warburton’s edition is marked as eminently beautiful, and, on the ...”

“... the day. Part of what lies behind this unusual strategy is Clark’s extreme dislike of Professor J.H. Plumb. Clark’s hostility to all sorts and conditions of radical historiography turns out on closer inspection to be a hostility to anything and everything said by Jack Plumb. The unwary reader might wonder how Plumb comes to be bracketed with ...”

“... there in 1878. She went to seek respite from her passionate but unconsummated love affair with Richard Doughty-Wylie (nephew of the great explorer Charles Doughty), whom she had met when he was British Consul in Konya. Doughty-Wylie was married, and was not prepared to risk his career by leaving his wife. A man with physical courage to match ...”

“... long ago pointed out, decide that this was the perfect time for him to sell his share in the King’s Men, simultaneously funding a comfortable retirement and avoiding paying a portion of the bill for rebuilding the playhouse. Instead of getting involved in the fuss and cost of reconstruction, according to this narrative, Shakespeare contributed just the ...”

“... of Hermes, Zoroaster and Pythagoras or relations between the later Roman Empire and the Persian king Shapur II, which Angelo Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola and others debated in the new Florentine library of San Marco. Yet they were also – or were supposed to be – places of quiet, intensive study. When the French jurist and antiquarian Claude ...”

“... a draft deferment every bit as opportunist as Clinton’s. He also supported the Martin Luther King movement, and paid generous tribute to it (criticising his own party for its abstention and opposition) in his inaugural address as Speaker. Furthermore, he has admitted to smoking dope, to divorcing his first wife while she was in the recovery room after a ...”

“... way, the mathematical sublime has cast its spell. At the end of the fourth act of Henry V, the King asks his herald for details of the English dead at Agincourt. The herald hands over a paper, and the King reads: Edward, the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Richard Ketly, Davy ...”

“... features. In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, recalled for him by the prophet Daniel, the Babylonian King sees a giant image with a head made of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay. Here is not only the same sequence of metals as in Hesiod and Plato, but, with the localisation of the metals to ...”

“... as part of that biographical evidence: Constance’s grief over the death of her son Arthur in King John must reflect Shakespeare’s grief at the death of his own son, Hamnet; a reference to cuckoldry in Sonnet 93 indicates that Anne Hathaway was unfaithful; and so on. As Shapiro comments, perhaps Shakespeare was thinking of his own life at those ...”

“... from a few generic ‘heads’ and ‘figures’, they include such terms as ‘warrior’, ‘king’ and ‘god’. Although his personages hardly appear triumphal or sovereign, his titles aren’t satirical, at least not in any simple sense. He named some of his pieces after characters in Greek myth, with an emphasis on the defeated and the doomed. He ...”

“... He later boasted of his obstinate silence: his ‘judges’ – who included rackmaster Richard Topcliffe – ‘could get nothing of him to all their demands but Aye and No’. He was also plagued by prison informers, ‘two damn’d villains’ who tried to wheedle seditious sentiments out of him. One of these was Robert Poley, the government ...”

“... local dominance by various ruses, some of them old-fashioned daredevil exploits devised by Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen. ‘When full deduction is made of the advantageous conditions’ of Allenby’s victory at Megiddo, Liddell Hart concluded, ‘the operations deserve to rank among history’s masterpieces for their breadth of vision and ...”

“... having examined the child, claimed to have detected promise of mathematical genius. Moving on to King Edward VI Grammar School in Aston, Reed specialised in Classics. Since Greek was not taught, he taught himself, and went on to win the Temperley Latin prize and a scholarship to Birmingham University. There he was taught and befriended – as were his ...”