Biography
Two for the road
Jane Glover follows the rapturous Wolfgang around Venice, Bologna, Florence and Naples on three journeys that would change the young composer’s life
Scent and smoke and sweat
The world would never be quite the same again after we first glimpsed the casino of Royale-les-Eaux at three in the morning, says Philip Hensher
The breath of life
Snatches of memoir, poetry and observation from a writer whose main preoccupation is recording the lives of others
‘Will you do a book for me?’
Born in a poor quarter of Vienna, the refugee took London by storm, married four times, survived financial ruin and died eulogised the world over
A glorious tale of greed
Promising his investors dazzling riches with his tale of hidden Ghanaian gold, the charismatic John Ackah Blay-Miezah pulled off one of the most brazen scams of the past century
To have and to hold
Lauren Bacall was 25 years younger than Humphrey Bogart. Unlike his previous wives, she stayed – though Roger Lewis finds something creepy about their relationship
Going for broke
The founding member of the Small Faces was playing an instrument from the age of six, but was forever haunted by the fear of MS, the inherited disease which eventually killed him
A woman of some importance
Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s creative influence on her husband George Orwell has been ignored for far too long, says Marina Benjamin
Four disparate intellectuals
Of Wolfram Eilenberger’s four intellectual heroines, Simone Weil alone really counts as a ‘visionary’, forsaking philosophy for a kind of saintly mysticism
A true Renaissance man
Albrecht Dürer was an undoubted genius – and no one was more conscious of it than the artist himself, says Philip Hoare
Glamour and grime
Of the Stones’ talented wives and girlfriends, Anita Pallenberg contributed most, dictating the band’s style and even how they should remix tracks
Cold-blooded betrayal
In an effort to arrest his slide into middle-aged bloat, he attempted a ‘Proustian’ novel, but spilling the secrets of the women he claimed to love was social suicide
Deep mysteries
On 11 June 1930, William Beebe and Otis Barton descended into the Caribbean depths to glimpse a world no man had seen before
When the going was good
Though she photographed many society figures of the 1930s, Ker-Seymer lacked ambition and remains largely unknown – as she herself seems to have wanted
A skilled networker
Born in 1559, Alice Spencer, a formidable networker, matchmaker and patron of the arts, was the muse of poets including Edmund Spenser and John Milton
Disappointed youth
The singer-songwriter deserved to be far better known in his lifetime – but reticence and mental illness contributed to his tragically early death in 1974
The British Socrates
After vital work for British intelligence during the second world war, why did J.L. Austin devote the rest of his life to considering literally asinine questions?
Between woods and water
Patrick Barkham pays tribute to the much-missed nature writer, whose core response to the call of the wild animated everything he did
Three’s a crowd
Calling themselves the Bee Gees spelt trouble from the start for the very disparate Gibb brothers, says Craig Brown
A mass of contradictions
D.J. Taylor explores how the fracture between the person Orwell wanted to be and the person he seemed to be runs through his life and work
Discordant times
Exiled from Russia and often denigrated in America, Rachmaninoff lived in a fug of unbearable, impenetrable sadness, says Paul Kildea
From she-devil to heroine
Jonny Steinberg describes Nelson and Winnie’s doomed marriage, and how their posthumous reputations have undergone a startling reversal
The great exhibitionist
Antonia Fraser describes an intelligent, independent woman, whose penchant for cross-dressing reflected her yearning for the freedom only men enjoyed
A lifetime’s passion
Honor Clerk celebrates Jim Ede and his matchless collection at Kettle’s Yard
No more Mr Nice Guy
Volodymyr Zelensky is one of the few leaders of modern times whose charisma, determination and sheer cojones can be said,…
