Biography
A grand tour of the globe
When the wealthy young Joseph Banks announced that he intended joining Captain Cook’s expedition to Tahiti to observe the Transit…
High on speed
I have driven a racing car. On television, it looks like a smooth and scientific matter. It is not. A…
The music deafens
People often say that the battle for male gay rights has been won, at least in the West, and that…
Tyrants at table
Private chefs keep many secrets and are expected to go to their graves without sharing a morsel of gossip about…
East meets west
When musicians from outside the Anglo-American pop mainstream achieve success in the West, there are conflicting reactions. Seun Kuti, the…
A resounding success
Gustav Mahler was a passionate enthusiast for the colossal in music. Even so, his mighty eighth symphony stands apart, says Philip Hensher
In his own sweet way
On 8 November 1954, Dave Brubeck’s portrait appeared on the cover of Time magazine, accompanied by the words ‘The Joints…
The prize of the skies
The art of falconry is more than 3,000 years old and possibly as popular now as at any time. Its…
The great taboo-breaker
In 1983 I was sent to New York to interview Johnny Rotten and I took the opportunity to call on…
Escape into war
What compelled three well-known British writers to leave their homes and travel 6,000 miles to participate in a nasty late-19th-century…
Cooking up miracles
Georgina Landemare cooked for the Churchill family in all their kitchens, during the 1930s and 1940s. She got as close…
The miller’s son from Leiden
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–69) is not only the presiding genius of the Dutch golden age of painting, but one…
The crazy spirit of comedy
Doddy! Thou shouldst be living at this hour. England hath need of tickling sticks. So also hath the rest of…
Evil personified
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…
