The short step from good manners to lofty imperialism
In the gap between what we feel ourselves to be and what we imagine we might in different circumstances become,…
The wilder shores of excess in William Trevor’s fiction
A very prolific and long-standing writer of short stories reveals himself. William Trevor, who died in 2016, owned up to…
1968 and the summer of our discontent
’68 will do as shorthand. Most of ’68, as it were, didn’t happen in 1968. It was, at most, the…
Debussy: the musical genius who erupted out of nowhere
At the end of his study of Debussy, Stephen Walsh makes the startling, but probably accurate, claim that musical revolutionaries…
The murder of a harmless Hampstead eccentric remains shrouded in mystery
‘True crime’ is a genre that claims superiority over imagination, speculation and fantasy. It makes a virtue of boredom and…
Reading Norman Davies’s global history is like wading through porridge
For many of us, life has become global. Areas which were previously tranquil backwaters are now hives of international activity.…
Romance and rejection
‘Outsider’ ought to be an important word. To attach it to someone, particularly a writer, is to suggest that their…
Of his time
Great novelists come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they all share is a status of half-belonging. If…
Whatever happened to Alice?
In 1987, the art of opera changed decisively. John Adams’s opera Nixon in China was so unlike the usual run…
A dazzling vision
There are a number of reports by his contemporaries of Thomas Gainsborough at work. They make you realise what a…
Annie Proulx is lost in the woods
You can’t see the wood for the trees in Annie Proulx’s epic novel of logging and deforestation in North America, says Philip Hensher
Why we love unfinished art
An unfinished painting can provide a startling glimpse of the artist at work. But the common tendency to prefer it to a finished work is being taken to extremes, says Philip Hensher
The making of modern India
The sacrifices made by India on the Allies’ behalf in the second world war would profoundly affect the country’s future for better or worse, says Philip Hensher
Sartre, de Beauvoir and Sheffield teenagers; the weird glamour of existentialism
We all carried their philosophy around in our youth, says Philip Hensher. But did anyone — including the existentialists themselves — really understand it?
Moguls and other Hollywood monsters
This collection of Hollywood tittle-tattle is moderately interesting, unpleasantly salacious and largely unsourced, says Philip Hensher
America’s greatest magazine — at its greatest
The New Yorker has always been revered for the supreme quality of its writing, says Philip Hensher
Charles Williams: sadist or Rosicrucian saint?
Charles Williams was a bad writer, but a very interesting one. Most famous bad writers have to settle, like Sidney…
Margaret Thatcher’s most surprising virtue: imagination
Margaret Thatcher’s second administration saw bitter divisions at home, but abroad the breakthrough in Anglo-Soviet relations really did change history, says Philip Hensher
The old-fashioned greatness of Christian Thielemann
Philip Hensher admires an old-fashioned conductor who unashamedly favours the great German composers — and Wagner in particular
Go Set a Watchman should never have been hyped as a ‘landmark new novel’, says Philip Hensher
Philip Hensher on the tangled history of To Kill a Mockingbird’s much-anticipated ‘sequel’
Queen Victoria was born to be a novelist — this book proves it
A wonderfully vivid school story has surfaced written by Queen Victoria as a child. The monarch was clearly a sensational novelist manqué, says Philip Hensher
Carnage on the home front: revisiting a forgotten disaster of the first world war
Philip Hensher on a little-known episode of first world war history when a munitions factory in Kent exploded in April 1916, claiming over 100 lives
Plumber, taxi driver, mystic, musician — the many facets of Philip Glass
Philip Hensher infinitely prefers the words to the music of the maverick ‘minimalist’ composer
A strain of mysticism is discernible in the floating colour fields of Mark Rothko’s glowing canvases
Philip Hensher on the perverse, tormented Mark Rothko, whose anger and depression — often painfully apparent in his art — only increased with his success
Drink, drugs and dressing-up: behind the scenes of the fashion industry
Philip Hensher explores a dangerously intoxicating world, and discovers just how quickly famous designers can become an irrelevance
