“... problem which John Stubbs never grips. We are two-thirds of the way through before we reach ‘the English civil war’ of the 1640s. The bulk of the book is set in the generation before it, from the years around the accession of Charles I to the outbreak of fighting in 1642. ‘Cavalier’ meant more things after 1642 than before it. It was in the mid-winter ...”

“... thus impedes critical political analysis. Not only the Englishman’s constitution but also the English constitution are traditionally felt to be particularly ‘natural’: Shakespeare’s plays are seen as embodying a characteristically English balance of opposites, neither too radical nor too conservative, neither too ...”

“... most cases the effect is playful, but Prince Lluellen is, after all, a dangerous rebel against the English king, while the juxtaposition of Falstaff’s histrionic outlawry with scenes of actual rebellion is a reminder that the mere invocation of Robin Hood could serve as what Barton calls ‘a generalised cover for social protest and dissent’. Indeed her ...”

“... rivers, the Alpheus and the Cladeus, buried the stones in silt. Very little was visible when the English antiquarian Richard Chandler rediscovered the site in 1766; recovery efforts began in the next century. Since the 1870s, the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut has supervised excavation, assisted more recently by the ...”

“... best to do one’s homework by oneself.’ The French on, which is grammatically analogous to the English ‘one’ – sexless and singular – but lacks its pretentious overtones and is commonly used, declines variously and thus more pleasingly. Compare: ‘On fait de son mieux pour faire ses devoirs soi-même.’Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in the posthumously ...”

“... As a mystery story, it’s very mysterious. Such is Amis’s authority, already, in modern English fiction that it will be taken very seriously. The Magic Glass is propelled our way by a back-coverful of pre-publication puff: ‘really marvellous’ (Colin Wilson), ‘wickedly funny’ (A.S. Byatt), ‘very nourishing entertainment’ (Dame Rebecca ...”

“... Robinson Crusoe, in 1719. If he had died a year or two earlier, his work would not be on any English literature syllabus. Given that A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain was written even later than his novels, he would probably be entirely unknown to the general reader. He would, however, still be familiar to scholars interested in early ...”

“... wonders how such land-bound creatures as the Spaniards managed to get to America at all. Did Sir Richard Hawkins say his latitude was 48°, three degrees north of where he ought to have been? Then he meant 50° 48' – ‘how so obvious an error got into the text is immaterial.’ He saw a peopled country with many fires? That could easily be the uninhabited ...”

“... CIA was a Soviet spy. After such sleuthing it is a relief to find in this book of essays edited by Richard Langhorne an article on the Cambridge spies by a don, and it is by far the most sensible account so far written. It is the best because Christopher Andrew is a historian at Corpus Christi, Cambridge who has become the leading authority on the Intelligence ...”

“... read. I can still see the mid-1970s Penguin collection I carried around like a talisman: parallel English and French texts, the cover Carlos Schwabe’s painting Spleen et Idéal. OK, I confess: I fell hard for the Baudelaire mythos, while never quite getting the poetry. I remember being put off by all the ‘O, muse!’ stuff, which seemed more redolent of ...”

“... tongues, we are too mesmerised to be sceptical, although, in his brief and sensible treatise on English prose style, Herbert Read very pertinently enquired if anyone had actually seen those ‘tongues’. They were lying tongues no doubt, however dumb. But Kipling knew how eloquent they would be, and brazenly classed them with the good journalist’s ...”

“... family to include a startling and unlikely candidate: a translation of a mystical meditation into English from French made by Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen. The Glass of the Sinful Soul, as she called it, was not an original work, but a good pupil’s exercise, undertaken in 1544 at the age of 11 as part of her lessons. A long prayer by Marguerite de ...”

“... jollity was Charles Hamilton, better known as Frank Richards, who made a Never Never Land of the English public school, but did it with such dash, amiability and authority that every subsequent generation, right up to the present, has contained its quota of Greyfriars enthusiasts. Greyfriars came into being in 1908 along with Harmsworth’s Magnet, its ...”

“... climate. Imports and translations have increased greatly in number in the past ten years, with English and German vying for first place in the translation table, French running third. But there is an imbalance in the relationship. ‘The complaint of Hungarian literature is that it is undervalued on the world stage. We could have a greater presence in the ...”

“... for being an asthmatic weakling and Nina called him ‘Failurchka’, a synthesis of English and Russian that gives the book its title; that to help Snotty get over his fear of heights, Semyon, with those mighty arms of his, once built his son an indoor ladder, and when Snotty shakily climbed to the top, tried to push him off it; that Nina ...”