The world-class musician describes his early desire to shock, his delight in the sensual, his life-changing relationship with Catholicism and, finally, his debut at Carnegie Hall

A group of privileged teenagers at Buckley School, Los Angeles medicate themselves on champagne, cocaine and mindless sex – until something awful happens

The flamboyant hostess and ‘psychic’ interior decorator does seem like a comic creation – but she was real enough, and perhaps madder than Ludwig Bemelmans lets on

The lovable rounded character of The Canterbury Tales has been ridiculed over the centuries for her sexual appetites, completely subverting Chaucer’s focus

Thackeray’s amoral schemer is recast as a ruthless tabloid journalist, splashing gossip, hacking phones and pursuing personal vendettas

Shocked by the authoritarianism of Cuba and the USSR, the Peruvian writer turned his back on communism in the 1960s, influenced by seven liberal European thinkers

He certainly had delusions of grandeur, but his ambition to educate a people newly emerged from slavery showed a true visionary spirit

A festive gathering in the depths of rural France is fatally disrupted by a trio of sinister strangers

The initial reluctance of Britain, France, Poland and the US to share intelligence allowed the Nazis to hone their deception skills to early advantage