“... Emily’s son, converted to Republicanism. It was called ‘the levelling movement’ by Lady Emily, the last person one can imagine being levelled, who placidly remarked: ‘I think it charming to hear talked of but I fear they will never realise it.’ This was before Edward came back from the Continent and joined the United Irishmen. His ...”

“... of a book of reviews is no simple task. It is like looking at a mirror in a mirror, as in The Lady from Shanghai, where the revolver shots are lost, finally, in the splintering glass: by dint of looking at themselves in mirrors which reflect other mirrors, neither the gunman nor his human target any longer has much idea of what exactly is going on. It was ...”

“... I seem to think best in collision with other people’s thoughts. In a biography of Lady Diana Cooper, once said to be the most beautiful woman in England and by many accounts one of the most wittily charming, I read a snippet from one of Lady Diana’s letters to a friend: It’s not my nature to be quiet. I ...”

“... is imprisoned during a revolt of his subjects, and his betrothed, the ‘fair and gentle’ Lady Elizabeth, elects to share his captivity. After an idyllic period, singing, as it were, like birds in the cage, they become weakened and disillusioned by hardship. Bargaining for release, Lady Elizabeth does her best to ...”

“... units of ghostly narrative seem to circulate endlessly – the body in the basement, the white lady, the hooded monk – just waiting for a suitable place to take up residence: often the same story concerning Anne Boleyn or the headless horseman or whoever will be found in various locations. And fiction constantly gives the ghost-seers new material. For ...”

“... to Desdemona, after she presses him to think of something nice to say about her: ‘O gentle lady, do not put me to’t,/For I am nothing if not critical.’ For all its forbidding pauselessness on the page, If Not Critical catches something of the movement of a speaking voice and the demands it makes on the listener. It is literary criticism ‘to the ...”

“... be underway in Sicily. The Italian papers gave a different version. According to them, an elderly lady had a passion for mice, which she kept as pets. Having reached the age of 83 and being sans everything, she was no longer able to tend or feed them. The mice spilled out onto the roof and plummeted down from it. La Repubblica carried a cartoon showing ...”

“... Branch villain wears the same short shorts and carries the same FN rifle, and the farmer’s lady is twice driven to tears by the diary discovered on the body of a Zanla ‘terr’. Down in Chipinga district, in the remote south-east, the parents’ nightmare is that white children will be kidnapped or killed: Cumberland Farm is surrounded by trees and ...”

“... apprises Ellen of the implacability of desire by producing a funny little anecdote about a lady traveller in Port Said who was followed back to the ship by a man from the bazaar. She found the fellow in her cabin, sitting on the bunk beside her. Without saying a word, he pulled a chicken from his shirt and proceeded to stroke it hypnotically until the ...”

“... suggest a labour of love. Is Ms Scott perhaps the archival equivalent of Mansfield’s much abused lady minder ‘L.M.’ (Ida Baker)? Not in the least. Some of Mansfield’s own witty and acerbic tone seems to have rubbed off on her. She takes a cool pleasure in pointing out, for instance, that one of the mots Murry salvaged – ‘Spring comes with exquisite ...”

“... to his old friend Barezzi (father of his dead wife) gives nothing away. In my house there lives a lady, free and independent, who like myself prefers a solitary life, and who has a fortune capable of satisfying all her needs. Neither I nor she is obliged to account to anyone for our actions. But who knows what our relations are? What affairs? What ties? What ...”

“... know, to be a ploy: Gawain is being tested and it’s just as well that he is able to resist the lady’s bright features because the Court’s honour depends on it. Nonetheless, it wasn’t long before, as Malory has it, Camelot was undone by Lancelot’s passion for Guinevere. It is an Augustinian view of the world that represents men as unable to turn a ...”

“... were aborted so soon: the Twins were active members of the Bethnal Green Conservative Association. Lady Mancroft, president of the Association at that time, recalls ‘a frightful row ... they attacked someone, threw him across the road through a shop window. The police were very close and the hospital managed to sew the chap’s ear back on.’ Geoffrey ...”

“... Past Times, The World of Interiors, Merchant-Ivory films, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady or the trade in architectural antiques. What distinguishes Samuel from other, more censorious critics of contemporary culture is his relative indulgence towards such frivolities. He has inflamed some of his socialist colleagues by justifying the popular ...”

“... waste the next morning watching This Morning again. The two women who have upstaged me are called Lady Ironside and Mrs Patch. Lady Ironside, who wore a scarlet jacket similar to the one I might have worn, said that as a result of radiotherapy she was in severe and constant pain, her collar-bone was dead, her ribs fractured ...”