The English were never an overtly religious lot
Undeterred, Peter Ackroyd takes us on a breezy tour of the nation’s religious history, from the Venerable Bede to the present
Dickens’s London is more elusive than the artful dodger himself
Admirers of the novels have always enjoyed identifying their settings where possible, but Dickens’s old haunts are now mainly glimpsed in street names or blue plaques
The mad, bad and dangerous theories of Thomas Henry Huxley
Racism lies at the heart of the Victorian rewrite of the creation myth. What happened in prehistory, according to Thomas…
The Queen’s strength was that she did not change
Watchful, dutiful, serious but smiling — and with her personality kept skilfully hidden
Arnold Bennett’s success made him loathed by other writers
Virginia Woolf admitted to her journal: ‘I haven’t that reality gift.’ Her contemporary Arnold Bennett had it in spades. He…
Paradise and paradox: an inner pilgrimage into John Milton
When E. Nesbit published Wet Magic in 1913 (a charming novel in which the children encounter a mermaid), she took…
A.N. Wilson: The V&A’s Tristram Hunt is a modern Prince Albert
We don’t have Thanksgiving in Britain, but this does not stop us giving thanks and Christmas is a good time…
The first Puritans weren’t so much killjoys as ardent believers in honest living
‘Puritan’ is a term of abuse, and we tend to use it to refer to such figures as the nightmarishly…
Fantasist, bigamist and cheat: the colourful career of Robert Parkin Peters
In 2010, Adam Sisman published a masterly biography of Hugh Trevor-Roper, who was not merely one of the best historians…
An intellectual dynasty: the Darwins, Wedgwoods and their notable intermarriages
Readers of Geoff Dyer’s Out of Sheer Rage will remember that its author set out to write a life of…
In praise of John Meade Falkner: poet, arms-dealer and unforgettable novelist
When H.H. Asquith, as prime minister, visited Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, during the first world war, he found a vast…
Francis of Assisi’s life in poetry will stay in the mind forever
This passionate series of engagements with the life of St Francis will stay in my mind for a very long…
The stubborn old Hanoverians saw new Gunpowder Plots everywhere
Once won, rights and freedoms are taken for granted. We all find it difficult to imagine life before the Married…
Enoch Powell wasn’t racist – he just craved attention
Dining in splendour beneath Van Dycks as we forked in the delicious venison, it was hard not to agree with…
That’s no lady
Did I enjoy this novel? Yes! Nevertheless, it dismayed me. How could John Banville, whom I’ve admired so much ever…
Trials and Trinitarians
John Calvin believed that human nature was a ‘permanent factory of idols’; the mind conceived them, and the hand gave…
