Biography
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…
René Dreyfus: the racing driver detested by the Nazis
I have driven a racing car. On television, it looks like a smooth and scientific matter. It is not. A…
Why are musicologists so indifferent to their subjects’ love lives?
People often say that the battle for male gay rights has been won, at least in the West, and that…
When Idi Amin threatened to shoot the cook
Private chefs keep many secrets and are expected to go to their graves without sharing a morsel of gossip about…
For Ravi Shankar, music was a sort of religion
When musicians from outside the Anglo-American pop mainstream achieve success in the West, there are conflicting reactions. Seun Kuti, the…
Gustav Mahler’s bid for greatness: the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’
Gustav Mahler was a passionate enthusiast for the colossal in music. Even so, his mighty eighth symphony stands apart, says Philip Hensher
The good boy of jazz: Dave Brubeck’s time has come round at last
On 8 November 1954, Dave Brubeck’s portrait appeared on the cover of Time magazine, accompanied by the words ‘The Joints…
Dangerously desirable: the white-morph gyr falcon commands sky-high prices
The art of falconry is more than 3,000 years old and possibly as popular now as at any time. Its…
The wizard that was Warhol
In 1983 I was sent to New York to interview Johnny Rotten and I took the opportunity to call on…
Death in the Cape – the lonely fate of Mary Kingsley
What compelled three well-known British writers to leave their homes and travel 6,000 miles to participate in a nasty late-19th-century…
The stomach for the fight: cooking for Churchill during the war
Georgina Landemare cooked for the Churchill family in all their kitchens, during the 1930s and 1940s. She got as close…
Rembrandt remains an enigma
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–69) is not only the presiding genius of the Dutch golden age of painting, but one…
We were highly amused: the Queen — and Mrs Thatcher — thought Ken Dodd tattyfilarious
Doddy! Thou shouldst be living at this hour. England hath need of tickling sticks. So also hath the rest of…
How did the infamous Josef Mengele escape punishment?
The atrocities of the concentration camp at Auschwitz–Birkenau are now universally known, but it is still almost beyond belief that…
A lovable, impossible man: Bryan Robertson, gifted curator and Spectator critic
Andrew Lambirth claims that Bryan Robertson was ‘the greatest director the Tate Gallery never had’; but on the evidence of…
The dark past of the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge
A distinctive pattern of horizontal and vertical lines appears in the background of many of Eadweard Muybridge’s best-known photographs, giving…
David Bowie: the boy who never gave up
A few years ago Will Brooker spent 12 months pretending to be David Bowie. For several weeks he dressed up…
How troll stories blighted the life of Patrick O’Brian
Patrick O’Brian, born Richard Patrick Russ, never wanted his life written, and this passionate wish presents the first hurdle to…
The genius of Reynolds Stone: a private man in a public world
You may not know the name of Reynolds Stone, but it is almost impossible that you haven’t come across his…
Burnt out at 27: the tragedy of Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin hated the word ‘star’, but she loved the trappings. As soon as she made serious money she bought…
James Baldwin’s radicalism was part Marxist, part Christian
Great biographies try to answer questions about the complicated relationship between their subjects’ inner life and outer workings. How did…
Three dashing Frenchmen captivate Victorian London
Do not google Samuel Jean Pozzi. If you want to enjoy Julian Barnes’s The Man in the Red Coat —…
A cross between Joyce Grenfell and Frida Kahlo: Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins
In 1971, Tove Jansson paid one of her many visits to London, where 1960s fashion hangovers made the whole city…
Edith Nesbit — a children’s writer of genius who disinherited her own adopted offspring
‘When one writes for children,’ the novelist Jill Paton Walsh has said, ‘there are more people in the room. Writing…
What made Lucian Freud so irresistible to women?
Amedeo Modigliani thought Nina Hamnett, muse, painter, memoirist, had ‘the best tits in Europe’. She fell 40 feet from a…
