“... 14 in February 1974, tripling its popular vote. Although tempted by the prospect of coalition with Edward Heath’s Conservatives (Labour had emerged as the largest party, but without an overall majority), Thorpe was persuaded by his parliamentary party not to do a deal without a guarantee of electoral reform. He left his successors good cause to credit him ...”

“... of one hieroglyph. Dee was a curious figure: he was persuaded that his ‘scryer’ or medium, Edward Kelley (alias Talbot), could see angels in a seeing stone, and could have conversations with them. These ‘conversations’ were eventually published, with no friendly intent, by Méric Casaubon (the son of the anti-hermetic Isaac), and they record the ...”

“... dreams of global fellowship and exchange as the foundation of modernity. Bardaouil argues that Edward Said’s Orientalism sets up too rigid a polarity between East and West, and that his views have inadvertently contributed to nationalist isolation; he respects Said and his book’s historic importance but points ...”

“... is without a rival in handling the paradox of commonplace.’ More generously, it can be said that Seeley excelled in devising fresh and attractive syntheses from the ideas of his time. Honest and high-minded, he shared his thoughts openly with the world, but his conscious mind would surely have been surprised to learn what his unconscious was ...”

“... Jack Benny’s wife, Mary Livingston, could buy two quarts of Vent Vert perfume. ‘Bill Paley said you could do it,’ she told Schoenbrun, by way of thanks. An example, Halberstam rather tendentiously concludes, of how ‘news was becoming less and less important; entertainment was bigger and bigger.’ Such little episodes are the best and brightest ...”

“... could be seen in the documents previously available. She told Rupert that when she was a child Edward Garnett had looked her over and said: ‘ “Heart-hard. Hard as nails!” I grinned with pride, and never forgot.’ Trying to push Rupert away from her, in 1912, Noel confessed: ‘The better things need passion: and ...”

“... deranged enthusiasts. Constantine Rafinesque, according to Conniff a ‘brilliant crackpot’, is said to have submitted a paper for publication describing a dozen new species of thunder and lightning. He scooted across America, trying to get his name for a species into print first, even if he had not actually examined it. In the process he wrongfooted many ...”

“... While Murchison and Lyell were conducting their researches, vast congregations were coming to hear Edward Irving, John Cumming and others preach on the signs of the last days. The rise of infidel philosophy (including the doctrines of geology) was said to signal the nearness of the end. Cumming thought David Hume was the ...”

“... in at the start. Her family would never leave houses alone. ‘We Are Not Removing’ the placards said. So many of them painted up in Effie’s kitchen at Number 11. The women who came to the meetings were not of the poorest. They had well-mended dresses and petticoats and boots. Once the strike was going, some of the women travelled to Govan from the groves ...”

“... newcomers, arrivals in Bloomsbury from the outside. ‘Most people were at that time ordinary,’ said Frank Swinnerton, looking back with nostalgia to the beginning of the century, and Dora Carrington might have had the good luck to stay ordinary. David Garnett, introducing his selection of letters, felt that the reader might ask: ‘Who was this woman ...”

“... company together for Notes at lunchtime. At Max’s invitation I spoke my thoughts to them ... I said that the audience’s pleasure at the story had trapped the actors into indulging their feelings, and the stage was awash with sentiment. Also, the music making, instead of being schmaltzy and to be taken critically, had become hearty English party ...”

“... woman, is in the act of creating the world: ‘And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God said “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God said “Er – could I just see the darkness again?”’ If this is not Pope John Paul II’s kind of God, it’s as much because of the hesitancy as the gender. If ...”

“... for the reader: I was also visited by wonderful dreams about flying which I later learned are said to be an indication of sexual desire. Whether or not this is true, the dreams were deliciously exciting, though having to stay airborne required much concentration … I’m regretful that I no longer have these dreams. Vague erotic fantasies, undirected to ...”

“... has the younger generation of royals exactly endeared itself to the national headmistress. Prince Edward has never recovered from the fiasco of It’s a Knockout, Fergie’s foray into fiction was equally ill-advised, and if Marina Ogilvy had not existed, the tabloids would probably have invented her (which to some extent they undoubtedly did). Even the ...”

“... captives Venus, which of course had no meaning in the village from which she had been taken, but said plenty about their expectations, intentions and transgressions. 'Abolition of the Slave Trade' by Isaac Cruikshank (1792) Cruikshank based his drawing on a story told by William Wilberforce in a speech delivered in the House of Commons a week earlier, in ...”