Gay and abandoned: A Previous Life, by Edmund White, reviewed
Edmund White’s new novel opens, somewhat improbably, in 2050. This imagined future, however, springs few surprises on the reader and…
Unlucky in love
James Courage is one of those fine writers who, though he enjoyed considerable success in his lifetime, has now more…
How two literary magazines boosted morale during the Blitz
William Loxley’s lively account of ‘Bloomsbury, the Blitz and Horizon magazine’ begins with W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood emigrating to…
All good friends and jolly good company: life with the Crichel Boys
In the spring of 1945 three men pooled their resources in order to buy Long Crichel House, a former rectory…
Poise and wit: The Collected Stories of Shirley Hazzard reviewed
Shirley Hazzard was in her late twenties when, in 1959, somewhat diffidently, she submitted her first short story to the…
The establishment was always covering up for Bob Boothby
Just after John Pearson finished writing The Profession of Violence, his celebrated biography of the Krays, both his and his…
Without Joseph Banks, Cook’s first voyage might have been a failure
When the wealthy young Joseph Banks announced that he intended joining Captain Cook’s expedition to Tahiti to observe the Transit…
Flower power: symbols of romance and revolution
Critics have argued over the meaning of the great golden flower head to which Van Dyck points in his ‘Self-Portrait…
Capturing the mood of the English landscape: the genius of John Nash
‘If I wanted to make a foreigner understand the mood of a typical English landscape,’ the art critic Eric Newton…
Was there some Freudian symbolism in Lucian’s botanical paintings?
In early paintings such as ‘Man with a Thistle’ (1946), ‘Still-life with Green Lemon’ (1946) and ‘Self-portrait with Hyacinth Pot’…
Feasts, flowers and plein-air painting at Benton End
Cedric Morris is often referred to as an artist-plantsman, and while as a breeder of plants, most particularly of irises,…
Fluttering to extinction: the tragedy of Britain’s butterflies
In 1979, despite the best efforts of scientists for more than a century, a butterfly called the British Large Blue…
The scourge of Christian missionaries in British-Indian history
Objectivity seems to be difficult for historians writing about Britain’s long and complicated relationship with India, and this makes the…
How pleasant to know Mr Lear
Edward Lear liked to tell the story of how he was once sitting in a railway carriage with two women…
The shocks and shells of the Somme
In the final months of 1914, medical officers on the Western Front began seeing a new kind of casualty. Soldiers…
The British army’s greatest catastrophe — and its most valuable lesson
Peter Parker spends 24 hours on the bloodsoaked battlefield of the Somme, scene of the British army’s greatest catastrophe
The other trenches: the Dardanelles, 100 years on
Peter Parker discerns classical allusion amid the horror in two books commemorating the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign
Sophia Duleep Singh: from socialite to socialist
Princess Sophia Alexandrovna Duleep Singh (1876–1948) had a heritage as confusing as her name. Her father was a deposed Indian…
David Hockney, our most popular and hardworking living artist, returns to the easel
The first volume of Christopher Simon Sykes’s biography of David Hockney ended in the summer of 1975. The 38-year-old painter…
The long and disgraceful life of Britain's pre-eminent bounder
In his time, Gerald Hamilton (1890–1970) was an almost legendary figure, but he is now remembered — if at all…
From Scylax to the Beatles: the West's lust for India
Peter Parker on the age-old allure of the Indian subcontinent
A truth too tender for memoir
It has been 14 years since Akhil Sharma published his first, widely acclaimed novel, An Obedient Father. Though its subject…
Brains with green fingers
‘Life is bristling with thorns,’ Voltaire observed in 1769, ‘and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.’…
Lawlessness, corruption, poverty and pollution: the city where we're all headed
India’s vast polluted capital, where brutality, corruption and ruthless self-seeking are endemic, could be the blueprint of the future, says Peter Parker
Pine by Laura Mason; Lily, by Marcia Reiss - review
After the success of their animal series of monographs, Reaktion Books have had the clever idea of doing something similar…
