Biography
A prickly customer
In October 1897, the grandees of the Royal Horticultural Society gathered to bestow their highest award, the Victoria Medal of…
A true bohemian
Jean Rhys lived a vagabond life – but she wrote about gloom and squalor with luminous purity and a poet’s care, says Lucasta Miller
The man in the white suit
Mark Twain conquered almost every challenge that came his way except old age. Living well into his seventies, he was…
Heights of absurdity
The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces has rendered what might otherwise have seemed a fairly niche study of a…
Surreal love triangle
One could compile a fat anthology of tributes to Marcel Duchamp’s charm – especially what one friend called the artist’s…
Muse and monster
Nancy Cunard’s defiance of convention began early, fuelled by bitter resentment towards her mother, says Jane Ridley
Strong opinionsloosely held
In his 2005 book What The Dormouse Said John Markoff traced the roots of the personal computer industry to the…
A true European
Virginia Woolf admitted to her journal: ‘I haven’t that reality gift.’ Her contemporary Arnold Bennett had it in spades. He…
Women on the warpath
One thing that Covid lockdown made us appreciate was the importance of being outdoors. When we were finally allowed into…
The man who disappeared
In September 1890 a Frenchman called Louis Le Prince left his brother in Dijon and boarded a train to Paris,…
A pure original
John Donne sounds like nobody else, and his poems invite us to feel that we might know him, says Daniel Swift
Guiding light
If you have ever thought that there cannot be anything new to say or to learn about the Queen, you…
Not just a pretty face
‘Who is AOC?’ the back cover of this book asks. ‘A wack job!’ says Donald Trump. ‘She needs to run…
Radiant yesterdays
Richard Cohen was once one of our foremost book editors as well as being an Olympic sabre champion. Since moving…
A great talent-spotter
There’s no excuse for dullness, especially when writing about a life as eventful as Joseph Johnson’s, the publisher and bookseller…
The first intercessor
The Catholic church has always venerated Mary (‘Mother of God’) above other saints. But in recent years there has been…
In love and war
As Europe descended into chaos, the middle-aged Picasso remained as bullish as ever, says Craig Raine
Dons and rebels
Paula Byrne describes life at Oxford University in its eccentric heyday
Which Mary is which?
Is there a patron saint of conjecture? Perhaps it is a name known only to Bible scholars, who have rich…
Cold comfort
The story of the five women waiting at home for Captain Scott and his doomed polar party is naturally occluded…
The caring doctress
Mary Seacole may not have qualified as a nurse in the modern sense, but British troops benefited greatly from her healing skills, says Andrew Lycett
‘The Rothschilds of the East’
David Abulafia admires the shrewdness, generosity and panache of the Sassoons over many generations
True devotion
The 20th century was an amazing time for Russian pianists, and the worse things got, politically and militarily, the more…
Force of nature
Philip Hensher describes how John Constable’s energy and imagination freed British art from the constraints of the past
The heart of the matter
Kathleen Stock describes how four women undergraduates in 1940s Oxford challenged an arid, modish philosophy
