Bleak House
The supreme conjuror Charles Dickens weaves his magic spell
Peter Conrad reminds us how the skilled stage performer, always yearning for enchantment, even introduced a few disguised magic tricks into his fiction
The atmosphere of a historic country house cannot be bought
Paintings, books and treasures collected by the same family over centuries give a historical depth that no modern plutocrat can recreate
How The Sopranos changed TV for ever
Peter Biskind describes how a once despised medium became the definitive narrative art form of the early 21st century. But has it now passed its peak?
His true calling
We tend to think of turning points as single moments of change — Saul on the road to Damascus or…
Talk of the devil
For years, Ian Fleming was famously self-deprecating about the James Bond books. (‘I have a rule of not looking back,’…
A glass of wine with Dickens
Which is the greatest novel in the English language? Let us review the candidates: Clarissa, Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, The…
