“... of nature. The 650 or so books he published might not seem an extraordinary tally for such as Barbara Cartland, who could dictate six thousand words between lunch and tea, or Georges Simenon, who rarely spent more than a fortnight on a novel. But Dumas was not merely a novelist: he also wrote plays, travel books, memoirs, histories, accounts of great ...”

“... forthcoming Empire Exhibition of 1924. The mission left for South Africa on board the RMS Kildonan Castle in January 1922; Agatha went along for the ride, leaving Rosalind with Madge. Belcher won the fancy-dress competition; Archie and Agatha beat a Belgian couple at quoits – ‘I hear you’ve knocked out the Dagoes! Splendid.’ After dispatching three ...”

“... Craig Raine, James Fenton, Alan Jenkins, Clive Wilmer), the academics (Nicholas Jenkins, Terry Castle, Colin McGinn, Deborah Cameron, Deborah Bowman, William Pritchard, Eric Homberger, Michael O’Neill, Rachel Buxton) and the memoirists (Karl Miller, Anthony Thwaite, Robert Conquest), though several of them can lay claim to more than one of these ...”

“... of his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda, or Second Defence of the English People, which Barbara Lewalski, in her biography, oddly calls his ‘least attractive work’, Milton gives thanks to God chiefly for three reasons. The first, in George Burnett’s 1809 translation, is that I was born in those times of my country, when the effulgent virtue ...”

“... grimmest features . . . This work, coming into being only for itself, or for its author, was a castle laid out like a labyrinth, meant to be torn down no sooner than it was built. Even as late as March 1920, Mann was unrepentant. ‘Heinrich’s position,’ he wrote, ‘no matter how splendid it appears at the moment, is basically already undermined by ...”

“... been wearing my usual old striped T-shirt to sleep in, but it feels pretty fucking useless. Terry Castle San Francisco India is no stranger to terrorism. But the terrorism that India has had to face for some decades can by no means be connected only to Islam; and in almost every case the ruling government has played a part in causing and even nurturing the ...”

“... A Life in Pictures, and explored every entry in The Stanley Kubrick Archives edited by Alison Castle: a 13-pound art-historical tome containing solid articles on every Kubrick film, together with miscellaneous interviews, excerpts from published memoirs and reviews, and photographs taken on and off the set. It may be a close call for non-initiates, but I ...”