“... ends with the monster fatally stabbing Frankenstein before leaping into the crater of Mount Etna; John Atkinson Kerr’s The Monster and Magician; or, the Fate of Frankenstein (1826) has Frankenstein and the monster grappling in a boat which is struck by a thunderbolt: ‘the waves vomit forth a mass of fire and the Magician and his unhallowed abortion are ...”

“... Muggletonians was, notably, Christopher Hill, who found significant links between these people and John Milton, as they drank and argued in the London pubs of the 1650s. For Hill and Thompson these were ‘radicals’, political as well as religious activists, part of Hill’s World Turned Upside Down. A vertical history of the subject could not at that time ...”

“... to fill in the details of his life, written with affection, humour and perspicacity by the pianist John Tilbury. Tilbury was Cardew’s friend and colleague, and a one-time (and part-time) fellow-traveller on the Maoist road; he has spent a quarter of a century writing this book. Aficionados will love his account; others might have preferred a more succinct ...”

“... and ambition’. His idealism, however, is threatened by disillusionment. He longs for a purer Christian commonwealth, but doubts ‘faith and charity would be enough to settle religious differences between men,’ and soon admits not only that ‘Reform was being built on an edifice of lies and monstrous brutality,’ but that as Cromwell’s man he is ...”

“... disloyalty, ambition, greed, insecurity and all the British hypocrisies that he crashed into. John Preston has made the most of it, providing not only a very readable and amusing book but also the fullest account yet of what actually happened. Some of his sourcing could be clearer – there are rather vague appendices and no footnotes – but he is ...”

“... and years was inherited from antiquity, but these units were shuffled into different shapes by the Christian calendar: the cycle of Advent, Nativity and Epiphany during the shortest days of the year – a time of renewal and rejoicing, according to Jacobus de Voragine – and the penitential progression between Easter and Pentecost, ‘a time of ...”

“... from the fact that, having been an active member of her father’s congregation and of the student Christian Union, she emerged from the war an atheist. The job of political secretary was a perfect fit for her. ‘She was really completely magnificent and we worked as one,’ Nancy Astor recalled. ‘I might describe it as my zeal and her brain, with the ...”

“... of its precursor is not altogether to the novel’s advantage. The revelations are made by John James Todd, a forgotten film-director in Mediterranean exile putting his memories in order. These are varied enough: born in Edinburgh in 1899, Todd proves largely ineducable but has a talent for mathematics and holding a camera. He endures an unsympathetic ...”

“... author’s, has been burned away in the refining fire of bibliographical theory. On the other side John Kidd champions an imperfect but historically authentic Ulysses, a book produced partly by genius, partly by accident, partly by the exigencies of the printing-shop. In matters of wording and punctuation, the differences between one Ulysses and the other are ...”

“... and elsewhere. Vidal describes the process through the eyes of his characters, Brooks Adams, John Hay, Theodore Roosevelt and a host of others. While Kennedy coolly analyses everything in terms of long-term trends, Vidal’s concerns are with the personalities involved – the indecisive McKinley and the ludicrous Teddy Roosevelt. His latest collection ...”

“... and terrified by everything that went on around him, Morell is the sort of figure every decent John Buchan chap loves to hate. (Mr Irving likens him to Lord Moran, Churchill’s physician – could it be his contempt for the Establishment that explains a comparison as inaccurate as it is insulting?) Morell was as well-informed on most aspects of internal ...”

“... Frances Yates, Rykwert discusses the interest in architecture shown by the Elizabethan magus John Dec and the possible connection between Dee and Inigo Jones. So far, so good: Perrault had not written yet. But it turns out – another exciting discovery – that Sir Christopher Wren, despite his admiration for Perrault’s writings, was also interested ...”

“... best-selling writers, their business is not in the main literary, and in 1972 the prizewinner, John Berger, made a speech in which he expressly deplored what he regarded as the exploitative nature of the donor’s principal interest; indeed he gave half his prize to a revolutionary movement. Other writers have shown some embarrassment but have not, so far ...”

“... as one put it, ‘the true Christ spirit’. She was struck by the Sermon on the Mount, not by the Christian religion. ‘To me,’ she said, ‘Jesus was a poor working-man socialist of genius, a sort of Keir Hardie!’ Schreiner’s was a healing, redemptive vision, compassionate towards men’s errors, and independent of a party line. During the First World ...”

“... Ziolkowski says, he unthinkingly obeys the protocol of courtly etiquette, and thereby forgets the Christian imperative of charity. Arguably, he has repressed the instinct of compassion; in that sense, he is inhibited. But Parzival is a gormless hero, not a hesitant one. He doesn’t ask himself: ‘What should I do?’ He just sits there like a ...”