It is impossible to imagine Henrician England except through the eyes of Hans Holbein
‘Holbein redeemed a whole era for us from oblivion,’ remarks the author of a trilogy of novels set at Henry…
Dark days for Britain: London, Burning, by Anthony Quinn, reviewed
Not long ago, a group of psychologists analysing data about national happiness discovered that the British were at their unhappiest…
The inside story of working for Carmen Callil
Forty-seven years ago, Virago paperbacks, with their stylish green spines and hint-of-the-transgressive colophons of a red apple with a bite…
My short, bitter-sweet marriage to the radical historian Raphael Samuel
In a telling moment early on in A Radical Romance, Alison Light admits that she once identified with the character…
Alma Mahler — maddening, mesmerising or plain malicious?
It must be rare for a popular song to have such a lasting influence on a posthumous reputation. However, this…
Celebrating the 1918 Armistice resulted in thousands more deaths
Reflecting on the scenes of celebration, the ‘overpowering entrancements’, that he had witnessed in November 1918 on the first Armistice…
Was Ada Lovelace the true founder of Silicon Valley?
It’s more than 160 years since the death of the computer pioneer Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage’s ‘enchantress of numbers’ and…
The great betrayal
They were at sea for more than two months in desperately cramped conditions. The battered ship, barely seaworthy, pitched violently…
Embarrassing Victorian bodies
The fetishisation of the Victorians shows no sign of abating. Over the past 16 years, since the centenary of the…
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