“... and de Acosta attended the same posh New York girls’ day school; Garland and de Acosta may have had an affair.) They shared friends and lovers, or at least lovers-in-law, on occasion. (Sybille Bedford floats around in this book like a benign sapphic putto.) And though residing in different places at different times, all of them moved for more than half a ...”

“... on it from a great height in order to crack open its shell. Perhaps the beginnings of this thought had struck the young Aurora when she was doing her embroidery: she had been taught ‘The trick of Greek/And Latin’ by her father before he died. The young Elizabeth Barrett, too, was surrounded by classical texts at her ...”

“... connecting with some fairly celebrated figures in the lesbian haut monde. A friend of mine once had dinner with Elizabeth Bishop and her lover. Another met Marguerite Yourcenar. At Yale in the 1980s one of Blakey’s best friends slept with – well, perhaps you can guess. (True – the closet case actress!) Someone else I know went to a party in a Chicago ...”