“... their idea of what the war was like from Robert Graves, Erich Maria Remarque or Vera Brittain may be surprised, and even slightly shocked, by what they find in these pages. There is no bitterness towards those held responsible for the war, no sense of betrayal by the older generation, no shattering of dearly held illusions, no dwelling on the horrors of ...”

“... that the material features of the past have to be made real to students. Too much talk of income may obscure the fact that it is an artificial concept, whereas a wheat crop, on which most people in 1700 were dependent, was something that the farmer could let run through his fingers to assess quality. Most students today in economic history courses cannot ...”

“... he broke into have been settled by others, he is left to forage where others feed. Yet this may have been Montague’s good fortune. From the beginning his poetry has been concentrated around images which determine its procedures. The logic of story has usually been slight. Few poets make less use of connectives. One can read several poems in succession ...”

“... than a father who is a terror? At the end the editor appends her guidelines on how the faithful may detect racism and sexism: they must beware of happy Black Sambos, of whites taking the lead, shun the norm of white middle-class suburbia, suspect the black family where the mother is dominant, eliminate books where the boys perform brave deeds, watch for ...”

“... strike the unclean forces, an enchanted sword to cleave and disperse them. Grant, O Lord, that I may not break as I strike! Let me not fall from Thy hand!’ (1973). Alexander Solzhenitsyn subtitles his book ‘Sketches of Literary Life in the Soviet Union’, and we feel the secondary, invisible inverted commas he claps around ...”

“... maintain unity within their industry, can exercise enormous clout, and it seems to me that some may for a while get away with it. But as depression deepens, an atmosphere of anxiety will dampen the climate of all negotiations. This will prove an extremely difficult situation, but it won’t go away, however hard we look in the opposite direction. The longer ...”

“... Raj off the coast of Burma, where his father, Walter Raleigh Trevelyan, was an Army captain. There may have been chain-gangs clanking away on the roads, and predatory savages on the neighbouring isles, but gracious living was not excluded: Government House had a ballroom the floor of which was polished by two murderers who held a third by the arms and legs and ...”

“... in the March Dail elections, when they polled around 1.9 per cent of the vote, the walk-out may have been premature. The convention also took several decisions which had important consequences for the military campaign in Northern Ireland. Out went several ‘dual membership’ people (who belonged both to Sinn Fein and to the IRA), and into key ...”

“... reformer’s abode; aggrieved defendants, or would-be litigants unable to afford the cost of law, may seek a Sedleian subtext in Warr’s consistent championing of equality against the forms of the law, and in his protests at the law’s discriminations in favour of power and interest. ‘Who would not blush to behold seemingly grave and learned sages prefer ...”

“... other authors, mostly fairies, twittering all over the place, screaming “Oh, Lionel!” ’ This may make George Orwell seem rather naive for having made the otherwise useful observation that: ‘how closely Wodehouse sticks to conventional morality can be seen from the fact that nowhere in his books is there anything in the nature of a sex joke. This is an ...”

“... benign atmosphere. He also seems to have a predilection for works on a small scale, which may reflect the common tendency in collectors to favour things in their own image (as God does): Ortiz is a small, alert, dapper man. His taste can be hinted at, perhaps, by a guess at what he might like to have samples of if he collected European ...”

“... between ancient and modern in Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906) and Rewards and Fairies (1910) may owe something to the stinking Lanchester: or, rather, to the idée fixe of velocity it embodied. In October 1901, in a letter full of warm and discerning praise for Kim (1901), James had advised Kipling to ‘chuck public affairs, which are an ignoble ...”

“... art and literature are ‘social actions ... embedded in systems of public signification’; which may seem limiting. In fact, the chapter is very worthwhile, and certainly a lot more fun than Black’s wooden piece on ‘Literature, Art and Thought’. Williams starts with the ‘social context’, here meaning literacy, the language, printing, schooling and ...”

“... Anne Doody’s book is well over three hundred thousand words and loaded with learning, which may appal the fainthearted, but they should take into account that throughout its length it is written with verve and wit, and is by any standard an extraordinary and idiosyncratic achievement. The closest comparison available is with Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of ...”

“... of them were something other, or more, than the bird-and-weather writers their readers knew. In May 1914 Thomas tells Frost that he ought to get started on a book about speech and literature, ‘or you will find me mistaking your ideas for mine and doing it myself’. He has been reading Frost’s North of Boston, abstemiously, only one poem an evening, and ...”