George Eliot
Why we are all solipsists
I once tried to write a novel but lacking any ear for dialogue or skill at characterisation, I abandoned the…
Pride and Prejudice retold in a thousand different ways
Some of the stranger reimaginings involve dragons, zombies, Lydia Bennet as a witch, Lizzy ending up with Charlotte Lucas and the story narrated by Anne de Bourgh
Even as literate adults, we need to learn how to read
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst shows us the rewards of reading slowly and attentively – and making connections between seemingly disparate things
Unrecorded lives: Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout, reviewed
The pandemic’s aftershocks are still felt in Crosby, as Strout’s best-loved characters, Olive, Lucy, Jim and Bob, reminisce about people they have known, imbuing their lives with meaning
Public lies and secret truths
Smith’s sweeping historical novel spans slavery in Jamaica in the 1770s and the marathon trials of the Tichborne Claimant in London a century later
Everywhere is Somewhere
I’m off. In the week when you may read this, my partner and I will be winging our way to…
The real deal – or not
One of the stranger things that happened in the period just before lockdown was the sudden disappearance of audiences from…
On the contrary
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
George Eliot was much more radical than we give her credit for
It’s easy to forget, as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of her birth, how radical George Eliot actually was. The…
Oddballs of English philosophy
Charles Kay Ogden once proposed that conversations would be conducted more efficiently if participants wore masks. Apart from confirming the…
Romance and rejection
‘Outsider’ ought to be an important word. To attach it to someone, particularly a writer, is to suggest that their…
The question Christianity fails to answer: ‘Who is my neighbour?’
‘Fine old Christmas,’ wrote George Eliot, ‘with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in…
From horses to glasses
A stint in dry dock — the ‘dry’ literally — has one advantage. There is time for lots of long…
A book for all ages
The genesis of The Road to Middlemarch was a fine article in the New Yorker about Rebecca Mead’s unsuccessful search…
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…
