How The Spectator discovered Helen Mirren
From Enoch Powell to Danny La Rue: Hilary Spurling looks back on her time in charge of the arts and books pages in the 1960s
Three remarkable sisters at the heart of 20th-century Chinese politics
In their lifetime, and afterwards, the Soong sisters from Shanghai seemed like figures from a Chinese fairy tale. There were…
Enduring life under Chairman Mao
Rao Pingru is 94, and a born storyteller. His gripping graphic narrative weaves in and out of the violent, disruptive…
True grit
As literary editor of the Sunday Times in the early 1980s, when the rest of the editorial staff routinely papered…
China’s brutal one-child policy will be catastrophic for us all
China’s brutal one-child policy was not only inhuman; it will profoundly damage the rest of the world, says Hilary Spurling
The long shadow over China’s only children
This book starts with a Chinese boy so privileged and pampered that, at 21, he can’t open his own suitcase,…
John Aubrey and his circle: those magnificent men and their flying machines
John Aubrey investigated everything from the workings of the brain, the causation of winds and the origins of Stonehenge to…
Literature's least attractive power couple
This book charts the rise and fall of one of the strangest power couples of modern times. The senior partner…
