Dracula
We have the French Revolution to thank for Ordnance Survey maps
You could say it started because of the French. The turmoil caused by their revolution got the British military worried…
Sympathy for literature’s least unheroic characters
Whether we see the primary cause as being postmodernism (for decades we’ve been told that our master narratives no longer…
The vampire’s role in Marxist philosophy
‘What!’, railed Voltaire in his Dictionnaire Philosophique of 1764. ‘Is it in our 18th century that vampires still exist?’ Hadn’t…
The RA’s new restaurant prioritises its art over its customers
The Keeper’s House sits in the basement of Burlington House, a restaurant in disguise. It is quite different from the…
Quaglino’s, the vampire brasserie
Quaglino’s is an ancient subterranean brasserie in St James’s, a district clinging to the 18th century with cadaverous fingers. It…
Sacred Monsters, Sadler’s Wells: Sylvie Guillem and Akram Kham’s captivating final boogie
I’m dashing between dance theatres at the moment and there’s just so much to tell you about. I could linger…
How the Romantics ruined lives
It is perhaps the most celebrated house-party in the history of literary tittle-tattle: a two-house-party to be precise. Byron and…
