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“... Three scenes from London life. 1) Westminster in 1999, when the tidal wave of ‘bogus asylum seekers’ that would break across tabloid front pages was just a gentle swell on the horizon. A House of Commons standing committee is discussing the Government’s proposal to replace welfare benefits (of around £46 a week) with a system of food vouchers worth £35 a week ...”

“... to high-flown romanticism. One spring morning in 1895, in the Prater Gardens in Vienna, Princess Louise – daughter of King Leopold of Belgium, wife of Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg – exchanged glances with a handsome young uhlan struggling to control the black stallion he rode. Géza Mattachich, the ‘stepson of a backwoods Croatian count’, belonged ...”

“... Louise Bourgeois​ died, aged 98, in May 2010. Shortly before her death Jerry Gorovoy, her long-time assistant, found a forgotten box of her jottings, unpublished papers and diaries from her time in psychoanalysis. He had uncovered a similar stash six years earlier; together, the materials came to a thousand pages of notes ...”

“... of Villy having her old governess sit with them at dinner, Villy disapproves of her daughter Louise wearing trousers. She encourages Louise to think she is clumsy and ugly, because it’s good for her; and, besides, the family ‘did not mention, let alone discuss, people’s appearance’ – a problem when ...”

“... to keep the secret in the family. Then the lemur is found shot through the eye. Glass’s wife, Louise, Big Bill’s daughter, is formidable in her own right. She’s gorgeous, of course, tall and thin, ‘48 but looked thirty’, with elegant manners, firm handwriting, a top-drawer education – ‘her three years of study in England, a postgraduate course ...”

“... a case of seeking hopefully rather than arriving. Born in 1829 as the daughter of a London builder, Juliet came from ‘the artisan rather than the professional classes’. Miss Oliver is faintly surprised that Flaubert should have been devoted (if devoted he was) to so humble a being, ‘It seemed far more probable that the father of a woman ...”

“... that the editor wanted to thank Albert for his letter and a subsequent visit he had made to their London office, but they had decided that ‘it would be best for us not to pursue the matter further in Picture Post, if only out of respect for the Yeats Family’s feelings’. He enclosed an office memo: Dr William Patrick Griffin, who is a Harley Street ...”

“... Lucas and Clement Graffe, Harvey Blacket, Bellamy James and his dog Anax, the Anderson women – Louise and her daughters Alethea (Aleph), Sophia (Sefton) and Moira (Moy) – Emil and Clive and the Adwardens. A reader alert to social differences will find such names far from neutral. An odour of class hangs about them. As emphatically as Tracy or ...”

“... failed). With all this wretchedness stacked behind it, the novel opens: ‘ “Marry me,” said Louise Agar.’ Will he? The monstrously tragic prelude (given in terse and intermittent flashback) permeates Wise Virgin with a kind of post-operative exhaustion. It is as if the writer had aimed at a juicy plot, missed and hit the epilogue instead. But, of ...”

“... One summer at the fag-end of the 1990s, I had to go out of London to talk to a literary society, of the sort that must have been old-fashioned when the previous century closed. When the day came, I wondered why I’d agreed to it; but yes is easier than no, and of course when you make a promise you think the time will never arrive: that there will be a nuclear holocaust, or some other diversion ...”

“... of tower blocks and overhead walkways, the Barbican is one of the most undervisited places in London. I love it as I love hospitals and airports, for the way they allow you to occupy public space without being seen, without being public. Ignore the signs and they ignore you. At the top of the staircase, on the seventh floor, another door opened onto a ...”

“... he also lived with seven Degas paintings. In 1876 he bought four ballet pictures from the London branch of the Paris dealer Durand-Ruel, quickly followed by two more plus a picture then called Figures in a French Café. Hill was striking early: the first Degas had entered a British collection only in 1872. It also made his holdings the largest in ...”

“... In her portraits Elizabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun did her very best to give a pleasing account of the facts of the flesh. The faces are attractive, the expressions forthcoming and responsive. The phrase ‘a smile played around her lips’ could have been invented to describe them. Her trademarks are half-disclosed rows of little pearly teeth; up-and-under looks; draped shawls, Greek smocks, Oriental accessories and loosely gathered curls; or a heavenward gaze (which owed something to Greuze, but doesn’t have the repellent sentimentality of his tearful bearers of crushed blossoms ...”

“... was complicated, as one might expect. In 1853 he explained it to – of all people – his lover Louise Colet: It may be a perverted taste, but I love prostitution, and for itself, too, quite apart from its carnal aspects. My heart begins to pound every time I see one of those women in low-cut dresses walking under the lamplight in the rain, just as monks ...”

“... her breasts, she said, ‘Bye.’ At his desk in the office, he took from a bottom drawer the London telephone directory, S to Z, and just when his eyes stopped, with a sinking feeling as if having to face a choice which would mean the loss of everything he had, on the bold lettering VENEREAL DISEASES, a colleague came to the desk and Charles shut the ...”