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“... Gardeners and, even less, flower painters are not usually thought of as leading adventurous lives. Their pursuits above all others are suggestive of peacefulness, of contented days quietly tucked away in hothouses and arbours, with no greater dangers to contend with than pricks from rose-bushes or stings from wasps. Yet it has never been like that entirely ...”

“... books with titles like How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup, a novel of 1975 by one J.L. Carr, as well as G.H. Goodchild’s handy wartime guide, Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps. There seems not to have been a dreadful piece of fiction published in 20th-century England that he hasn’t devoured. What claims his attention are irredeemably minor ...”

“... the Orwellian echo is too grandiose for the occasion, and as for the pastoral novelists – J.L. Carr and the late Don Bannister – one must hope that they are not unceremoniously ditched in Taylor’s next volume. Is modern fiction inadequate because the modern world is too complex for the novelist to grasp? Taylor took this view in A Vain Conceit, though ...”

“... one of stiffened scholarship and greater rigour. This was the era of Pevsner, Namier, E.H. Carr, D.W. Brogan, A.J.P. Taylor, Anthony Blunt and Noel Annan, all regular reviewers for the TLS (though the old, cosy TLS reappeared in 1946 when Russell’s History of Western Philosophy was sent to J.B. Hawkins, the vicar of Esher). May notes two milestones ...”

“... The names on Orwell’s list included Charlie Chaplin, Michael Foot and the historian E.H. Carr, as well as Peter Smollett, who was indeed a Soviet agent, and who had probably advised Jonathan Cape not to publish Animal Farm in 1944.Burgess explains at length that Orwell’s list was not a McCarthyite hit list, since the only harm that might befall ...”