How cartomania captivated even Queen Victoria
The craze for photographic cartes de visite that swept Victorian Britain was further boosted by the Queen’s own enthusiasm for the format
‘We are stuck like chicken feathers to tar’: Elizabeth Taylor’s description of the fabled romance
The Burton-Taylor relationship was either one of the greatest love stories of all time or a suicide pact carried out in relentless slow motion
The triumphs and disasters of 1845
It was a year packed with drama – from the transatlantic crossing of the SS Great Britain to the start of the Irish potato blight that would leave millions starving
Rescuing Elizabeth Barrett Browning from her wax-doll image
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an ambitious, passionate, determined woman – not the sad-eyed invalid of legend, says Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
The many rival identities of Charles Dickens
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst explores the many rival identities of Charles Dickens
The other half of Wham!
Have you heard the story about the time that Andrew Ridgeley, the 1980s heart-throb, refused to answer the door to…
The celebrated poet who’s been erased from English literature
Biographers are a shady lot. For all their claims about immortalising someone in print, as if their ink were a…
The Victorian melodrama that led to murder and mayhem
Early on the morning of 6 May 1840, a young housemaid in a respectable Mayfair street discovered that her master,…
The cruel end of Emmanuel Barthélemy –as a waxwork in the Chamber of Horrors
This is a biography that begins with a bang, swiftly followed by puddles of blood, shrieks of ‘Murder!’ and a…
A flawed and dangerous theory
If there were a prize awarded to the book with the best opening line, A. N. Wilson would be clearing…
A real-life Tristram Shandy – found in a skip
Most modern biographers feed off celebrity like vampires let loose in a blood bank. That is why their books sell:…
London fog: from the Big Smoke to the Big Choke
‘A foggy day in London town,’ croons Fred Astaire in the 1937 musical comedy A Damsel in Distress, puffing nonchalantly…
A misery memoir from Alan Cumming that's surprisingly thoughtful
Misery loves company. Anyone who doubts this old adage should pop into their local bookshop, because besides celebrity chefs and…
