“... fell quiet, ordinary forms of intimacy were forbidden. Two teenage sisters, Maria and Cammilla, took advantage of their mother’s absence in the plague hospital to dance with friends who lived in the same building. When they were discovered, their friends’ parents were taken to prison. At their trial, the mother, Margherita, blamed the two girls: ‘Oh ...”

“... The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Koestler’s The Sleep-Walkers, and all of Christopher Hill.He took a strong interest in subjects which intrigued him, notably dinosaurs and stone circles (Stonehenge in particular), cosmology and scientific matters generally (he was an avid reader of the New Scientist); and he was keenly interested in current affairs, both ...”

“... hotel. I cannot recall that he was ever an assigned author in any of the many literature classes I took, both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student, but he was always a significant presence, for my teachers as much as for myself. His vast output stretched over an enormous expanse of literature, and history, over a great range of cultures, East and ...”

“... the stones from the earth.The film takes its name from Ian Fleming’s 1956 novel, which in turn took its name from De Beers’s famously successful advertising campaign of 1947. The ads are worth seeking out: since antitrust laws prevented the cartel from doing business in the US, they couldn’t promote De Beers directly, so what you end up with are ...”

“... Though ‘certainly … of Scottish formation’, as she put it, she left the country early on and took a grandly tolerant stance towards moves to enshrine her as a great Scottish figure. ‘I don’t mind that,’ she said in 1998 while explaining that no one bought her novels in Edinburgh because bookshops there shelved them ‘under Scottish ...”

“... 27 in all, organised from A to Z – a segment per letter, plus one for good measure. Sorrentino took his cue from a line in Rimbaud’s Illuminations: ‘And the Hôtel Splendide was built in the chaos of ice and polar night.’ His final piece, for the last letter of the alphabet, deals the reader a dream ending: ‘Z. Everyone is asleep in the ...”

“... the 19th and 20th centuries. He wrote outstanding biographies of such Liberal leaders as Asquith, John Morley and Haldane, concluding with A.G. Gardiner, long-time editor of the Daily News. He then gave up political biography and wrote an enormous two-volume work on The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain. It is difficult enough to write the ...”

“... of mistresses, champagne, gambling and entertaining’. He was best known for his magazine John Bull. Launched in 1906 following Bottomley’s election as the Liberal MP for Hackney South, it specialised in a leaden patriotism. The French were ‘the Foul French’; the Labour leader Keir Hardie was ‘Kur’ Hardie; Britain’s wartime opponents were ...”

“... and excitement of research than Julia Blackburn’s account of her attempt to find out about John Craske. Detail from Craske’s ‘The Evacuation of Dunkirk’ She first hears about him from her friend Emily, who told her: ‘He was a fisherman who became a painter and embroiderer … I think he’s much better than Alfred Wallis down in ...”

“... writings and those of contemporary medical men, besides the testimonies of friends and strangers, John Wiltshire examines Johnson as both sufferer and physician (or healer). Hence his punning subtitle. Some of Johnson’s best friends, starting with his godfather, were doctors, and in addition to being himself a monumental patient, he was ready to give others ...”

“... than they might have hoped,’ one of the Spaniards said. On the foreshore they sang High Mass and took possession of the islands in the name of His Spanish Majesty. Just before they left, some canoes came out to the ships. The Spaniards did not know why. The people in the canoes were offering coconuts and breadfruit. But the Spaniards feared them, and so ...”

“... younger writers, whose thesis-novels, with their free-thinking views on politics and religion, took up the challenge thrown down by conservative reaction to the Revolutionary events in France. Bage, though, maintains a healthy distance from both the extreme optimism Godwin expressed in Political Justice (1793) and the profound pessimism of Caleb Williams ...”

“... In​ 1619, for a bet, John Taylor – prolific poet, proud Londoner, waterman, prankster, anti-pollution campaigner, barman, literary celebrity, palindrome enthusiast (‘Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel’) – sailed forty miles down the Thames to Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey in a boat made from brown paper ...”

“... were also a frequent trigger. In the 1860s the High Church principles of Thomas Keble (brother of John Keble, a leading figure in the Tractarian movement) became unpopular in his Gloucestershire parish, producing resentment that might have exacerbated opposition to the enclosure of local common land. In 1864, a disturbing letter arrived for ...”

“... violence: it is a survivalist world, bleak and uncompromising – the world of competitive chess. John Healy arrived there, without papers or proof of identity, a drowning man coming up for the last time. It was his only way of escaping from the slow-motion suicide of alcoholism, and he took it with manic relish. His ...”