“... stuff ... They are delightful niggers, those inexhaustible Ethiopians.’ To the art historian, Richard Powell, the meaning of all this was obvious. He writes in Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century (1996): ‘In a society that had recently suffered a war of tremendous proportions, and was increasingly changing into an urban, impersonal and ...”

“... political somersault, embraced Unionism and became a confidant of imperial figures such as Jackie Fisher, the first sea lord, whose ambitious battleship-building programme Garvin publicised and encouraged. His greatest achievement was to transform the venerable (founded 1791) and loss-making Observer into the prototype of the modern ‘quality’ Sunday ...”

“... are hostile is unlikely to be accidental. Berlin himself told Salmagundi:In 1933 Mr [H.A.L.] Fisher, the Warden of New College, asked me to write a book on Karl Marx for the Home University Library. I said: ‘What is the audience for the book?’ He said: ‘Squash professionals.’ I had never read a line of Marx ...One sees the famous charm at ...”

“... its time, the book has had its admirers – my battered 1970s paperback carries endorsements from Richard Hughes, Naomi Mitchison and C.S. Lewis, and Auden was an early fan. (Auden was a patron saint of lost causes. He was also the only major writer to stand up for Laura Riding.) But mostly, the sort of people who get their opinions published have lashed it ...”