“... took a liking to him, and he – like millions of others – was conquered by Churchill. It may have been galling for Colville to listen while Brendan Bracken or Mary Churchill heaped abuse on his former master. But as he was a charming and diplomatic young man, with malice towards none, he tried to think the best of everyone and usually succeeded. The ...”

“... them to the Mafia’s bugging of her home. Bobby was there the day she took her last overdose, and may even have called the ambulance which took her still alive to hospital and then back dead to her bed. Key police evidence was destroyed. Thanks to the aperient action of this book, a public inquiry is once again a possibility. Norma Jeane opens movingly with ...”

“... out of SOE’s generosity were probably the Albanians: Hoxha’s tyranny endures to this day. It may occur to the reader, as it occurred to Lord Selborne (the last head of SOE), that SOE agents, especially those equipped with W/T sets, were admirably placed to establish a post-war intelligence network, as the Russians were doing. We do not know what ...”

“... Goethe, Mann, Stendhal and Balzac in official literature and that, observes Vizinczey, ‘may yet have significant consequences for the future’. It is as if the very strength of his idealism – about political freedom and the power of literature – drives him to see the most practical aspect of the argument. Furthermore, it permits him to express ...”

“... other combinations. It was a new force in the making, only to be blasted by the peace. To us, it may be axiomatic that the wartime collaboration of classes and parties was a forced marriage, doomed to dissolve after the armistice. But, Dr Morgan replies, this was not how the world appeared at the time. Bonar Law, for example, seemed to wash his hands of ...”

“... of a palpable untruth about her dying husband be described facetiously as rushing into battle? One may also note as significant the misnaming of the article in question, which was actually reprinted as ‘The Orthodoxy of Enlightenment’ (the ‘collection’ was Anna Karenina and other Essays). Most dubious, however, is Morpurgo’s handling of ...”

“... Harry Graham is perhaps overworked, though children, who are never satisfied with a mere taste, may not agree. None in this genre is as good as Ogden Nash’s ‘Termite’. Some primal termite knocked on wood And tasted it, and found it good; And that is why your Cousin May Fell through the parlour floor ...”

“... son. He was happiest in the army, and perhaps the Communist Party. A structured male environment may have been his deepest need. The left-wing connection is a further facet of Hammett’s hold on our minds. Recently-opened FBI files are said to confirm that he was a CP member – although the laughable ineptitude of FBI agents and informers revealed by Ms ...”

“... framed the Budget as a test of ministerial loyalty to the American alliance. Be that as it may, Morgan is right to conclude that Gaitskell’s Budget ‘may fairly be considered a political and economic disaster’. Labour’s first two Chancellors, Dalton and Cripps, rate more favourably. Hugh Dalton, with his ...”

“... of history and a theory of genius. If they make no decision and offer an even-handed balance, they may only betray that Raphael bores them. People expect to be bored by Raphael. One of the first impressions of their excellent book is that Jones and Penny do not mean to give us time to be bored: they hurry on with a briskness that is often on the brink of ...”

“... when told to leave their homes before being exterminated. Though the symbolic coherence may lie beyond her, it is in the experience of Lisa that the disparate structure must justify itself. It is customary for Thomas to place a female consciousness at the centre of a fictional structure, and for that consciousness to dictate the structure. In his ...”

“... than the widespread apprehension of Bewick as an untutored rustic would lead us to believe. Bewick may have been bluff and candid but he was never artless. His Memoir, written when he heard that ‘more than one literary character’ was planning his biography, is a remarkably skilful and disingenuous apologia, intended to establish his stature both as an ...”

“... terror. I must also condemn a terror which is practised blindly on the Algiers streets and which may any day strike down my mother or my family. I believe in justice but I will defend my mother before justice.’ Even so judicious a critic as Conor Cruise O’Brien, writing 13 years later, saw fit to comment: ‘The defence of his mother required support for ...”

“... Italian cemeteries and to the marble hands of deceased royal children at Osborne House, but there may also be a growing fascination with the mixed feelings which such art stirs in us and some curiosity as to the consolations which it once provided. For the artists who created these things – unlike the modern sculptors who appear to have a similar interest ...”

“... out of account – is the murderous entail of Anglo-Irish history, in which, as a Cork man, he may fairly be considered expert. But unlike most experts, above all most specialists in Ireland’s past, he knows how little has to be told and how much is best left to the reader’s own memory and imagination. The point about an entail, as Mrs Bennet ...”