Mary Shelley
In the grip of apocalypse angst
Dorian Lynskey lays out the many ways in which we have imagined the world ending – through pandemic, nuclear holocaust, climate change, asteroid impact or, most unnervingly, AI
A free spirit: Clairmont, by Lesley McDowell, reviewed
Even by the Villa Diodati’s standards, Claire Clairmont was unconventional, seducing Byron when she was 18, and giving birth to their child after a possible affair with Shelley
Maggi Hambling's Wollstonecraft statue is hideous but fitting
Frankly, it is rather hideous — but also quite wonderful, shimmering against the weak blue of a late November sky.…
An astonishing treat: Dear Evan Hansen at the Noël Coward Theatre reviewed
Dear Evan Hansen, by Steven Levenson, opens as a standard American teen-angst musical. Evan is a sweaty geek with a…
Martha Kearney’s arrival at Today is a breath of fresh air
Like a breath of fresh air Martha Kearney has arrived on Radio 4’s Today programme, taking over from Sarah Montague…
Frankenstein’s monster is more frightening than ever
On the wall of her tumbledown house in central Baghdad, an elderly Christian widow named Elishva has a beloved icon…
Romance and rejection
‘Outsider’ ought to be an important word. To attach it to someone, particularly a writer, is to suggest that their…
The Royal Ballet is literally losing the plot
If a football manager produces a string of losses, the writing is on the wall and out he goes. He’s…
The Heckler: the Shakespeare anniversary has stripped the Bard of his beauty
The feeding frenzy over the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death has reached its peak. Recently we’ve had Shakespeare’s complete…
The Nightwatches of Bonaventura: a masterpiece of German Gothic
In the early 19th century, the Romantic movement was in full swing across Europe. You could probably date its birth…
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…
