“... it for its relish of damnation. This is one of the many books which address the snobbery of the English, which flash at their readers the lawns of their country houses, the baize of their gambling-tables, which describe the behaviour of those virtuosos of ostentation and disregard who have in common a contempt for commonness, for the middle class. It could ...”

“... with a damask vest and a hat with a rose on it, stood before the house and addressed him, first in English and then in French. He identified himself as Jean Le Clerc, the celebrated philologist and theologian from Holland who had edited the complete Latin works of Erasmus, produced a widely read periodical and written the first systematic modern manual of ...”

“... seem a perfect fit for Burnham. Manchester? – check. Roman Catholic upbringing? – check. Read English at university? – check. And because, for a certain kind of northern man, Burgess has always been – for once the term is apt – something of an icon. A bit mouthy and contrarian. Not part of the self-regarding London literary establishment. A Big ...”

“... exegesis, and the modern reader will find it exhausting, whether in challenging Latin verse or Richard Hillier’s excellent English translation.* Equipped with prose glosses and summaries quite early in its diffusion, the Historia Apostolica was a medieval bestseller. The great interest of the poem is the way its launch ...”

“... found in the pages of a book. Listen to this, for instance, from III Henry VI, a very early play. Richard, Duke of York has fatally lost a battle: … all my followers to the eager foe Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind, Or lambs pursu’d by hunger-starved wolves. His sons rally to him, and they counter-attack: With this we charg’d again; as ...”

“... with the horses they had not slaughtered for food.No prior record of success burdened the early English colonists. They could not afford the more languid colonialism of the Russian and French empires, whose fur traders established tributaries and commerce over the course of centuries, as well as making occasional attempts at the religious indoctrination of ...”

“... Gallery with the resounding slogan, ‘Patriotism is not enough,’ that I realised Cavell was English, not Belgian. But like Joan of Arc, she embodies a form of female independent-mindedness and courage and adventurousness. Both women stretched my horizons far beyond the dull observances of Uccle, and their experiences, even though they ended in horror ...”

“... gives her argument its delectable polemical edge (what a glorious bunch of dunces inhabit English departments!) but also limits her ability to compel unalloyed assent. That Bernhardt CD, after all, was an awful lot of fun: can’t we make one last foray into the flames to get it? None of which is to say that Acocella’s central points have lost ...”

“... down and going down, though there’s no doubt which one the audience prefers. 22 January. Take Richard Buckle’s autobiography, The Most Upsetting Woman, out of the London Library in order to refresh my memory of the Diaghilev exhibition in 1954. Buckle had organised it and put it on first at the Edinburgh Festival (a much smarter venue then than it is ...”

“... about the degeneracy of the sociology department, it has also brought out a newer truth about English culture and its responsibility for the decline of the industrial spirit. Doubtless the westward flight of professors will continue as the Social Sciences and Humanities are incorporated into the new curriculum: a series of two-day courses in market ...”

“... itself. As Primo Levi wrote, ‘it happened, therefore it can happen again.’A re​ we, as Richard Seymour suggests, ‘in the early days of a new fascism’? In Disaster Nationalism, Seymour argues that in trying to understand the new far right, we have been looking in the wrong places. Parties and policy platforms, or the personalities of ...”

“... is famous for two things: her intense screen beauty and her many marriages (eight of them, two to Richard Burton). But at least as central to her life were her close and enduring friendships with men, some gay (like Rock Hudson), others heterosexual (like Farrell). Sometimes, Farrell took her to the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she had been ...”

“... 23 July 2002 surfaced in the Sunday Times detailing the conversations that the head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, had with his counterparts in Washington. It contained the killer quote: ‘The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.’ This confirmed, if confirmation were still needed, that Blair’s lie to the Commons was not a careless ...”

“... them for their preparatory school.But things go wrong with the education of her eldest charge, Richard.Richard was a beautiful child and, despite a proper interest in and aptitude for all the importances of outdoor life, there were times when he would lean in silence against Mrs Brock as she played the piano, or even ...”

“... think of as normal classic names: Simon, Mark, Peter, Andrew, Paul, Martin, Michael, Stephen, Richard, Robert, David. Girls’ names remained more modish: some Sarahs, Anns and Elizabeths and even some residual Marys, but also plenty of Janets, Jackies, Lisas and Debbies, who soared and plummeted through the bestseller lists in the space of a couple of ...”