“... mentioned in a poem): the account is presented as that of a celebrated writer who wishes to remain anonymous, a ‘shy and quiet man’, as he calls himself, ‘who had always tried to shun the public eye’. It is really strange that such a fellow should initially have intended to publish the account, with all that it contains of the normally or Edwardianly ...”

“... preparation of the ground. In their poems Hardy and Larkin are natural dramatists. They intensify anonymous moods, invent situations; only the settings and the noticings are immediately and personally ‘true’. With Betjeman it is different. Although his imagination is so Victorian, he does entirely without the odd Victorian gift for disingenuousness, for ...”

“... the status of the nude photograph. Until then, it had been of the essence of the nude that it be anonymous: prints were given titles like ‘Two Sisters’, ‘Fille de Joie’, or, irreducibly, ‘Femme’. Such impersonality was the rule for all three genres of nude photography that were established in the 19th century: the openly erotic (often sold as ...”

“... and so on, whether talented or untalented, are as ‘sincere’ and ‘authentic’ as those anonymous metalworkers, believing in what they do, committed to their craft, encouraged and confirmed by public and critical favour – sometimes even by disfavour. Of course there are always a few charlatans and cynics and posers around, especially near the ...”

“... rides into a small town and upends it. The protagonist of War and War (1999) is obsessed with an anonymous medieval manuscript of an epic poem found in the archives of his town. Last year saw the publication in Hungary of the as yet untranslated Zsömle Odavan (‘Zsömle is Waiting’), about surreal goings-on in an unnamed village. Two of the novels have ...”

“... or less whom you are writing or painting for, whereas in the marketplace your audience becomes anonymous. The world no longer owes the cultural worker a living. Ironically, however, it’s the integration of art into the market that gives it a degree of freedom. Once it’s primarily a commodity, culture becomes autonomous. Deprived of its traditional ...”

“... but the narrator of those early novels, sometimes known as the ‘Secret File’ books, remains anonymous. According to Caine’s memoir What’s It All About? the idea was to give the film character an ‘ordinary, boring name’. ‘What’s the dullest first name we can give him?’ the producer, Harry Saltzman, asked. ‘Harry is a pretty dull ...”

“... is a familiar enough assertion, and we come across another version of it in The English World. The anonymous scribe writes there: ‘In the Middle Ages England shared with the rest of Europe a rigidly stratified social system. Beneath the king and his nobles was a class of landowning squires living on estates worked by peasants. Slightly outside the system ...”

“... Towards 2000 doesn’t attack anyone by name, but it disposes its entire discourse by setting up anonymous forces in full fighting kit. The fact that the forces are invariably abstract doesn’t alter the fact that Williams’s setting them up for combat is itself an act of violence. I’m reminded of an essay in which Emmanuel Levinas says that Hegel’s ...”

“... text of Southey’s flaming youth was nicely synchronised with two Quarterly Review articles, anonymous but easily exposed as his: one against the new political reformers, the other denouncing ‘the rise and progress of popular disaffection’. The juxtaposition was a ready-made cartoon: it needed no comment, only somebody to point, and found its man in ...”

“... the conscious invention of Great Men, or as unthinking behavioural changes occurring in countless anonymous souls. Such variants may be entirely new or combinations of existing practices; the analogy is with genetic mutation and recombination respectively. Their transmission, the analogue of Mendelian inheritance, is equally diverse. Some may be transmitted ...”

“... parade, including the accordionist Sis Cunningham’s down-home denunciation of the HUAC and an anonymous boogie-woogie blast at the anti-labour Taft-Hartley Bill. The female trio known as the Berries apply their Andrews Sisters’ harmonies to a parody version of ‘Swingin’ on a Star’, entitled ‘Swingin’ on a Scab’; the calypsonian Lord Invader ...”

“... to his admirers in many forms. In Abinger Harvest E.M. Forster had the idea of doing a kind of anonymous life of a young man in Regency London, quoting Keats’s letters and describing his hopes and fears and his family and financial troubles, but not mentioning him by name. It brought the actual Keats, before the legend began, very close. Barnard’s ...”

“... drying. Such action does not interest Freud; moreover Freud’s nudes, unlike Degas’s, are not anonymous, even if their identity is unknown to us. Freud is concerned to get as close as possible to individuals; and what may seem to be a loss of dignity can be the pre-condition for his regard. The London exhibition contains a painting of a nude woman made by ...”

“... mention ‘aftercare’, ‘post-funeral service follow-up’, Widow to Widow programmes, Mourners Anonymous? And in the afternoons they’ll play nine holes, or go snorkelling or start cocktails too early and after dinner they’ll go dancing then call home to check in with their offices just before they go to bed. Maybe I’ll take the boat over ...”