Biography
The complex character of Tricky Dick
In this Age of Trump, as we cast about for some moment in American history that might help us make…
What is the secret of Duran Duran’s durability?
In my second year at secondary school we were all deeply envious of a girl named Judi Taylor because, obviously,…
The disappearing man: who was the real John Stonehouse?
Craig Brown describes his various encounters with the MP who notoriously faked his own death in 1974
Foucault was shielded from scandal by French reverence for intellectuals
Consider the hare and the hyena. The hare, Clement of Alexandria told readers of his 2nd-century sexual self-help manual Paedagogus,…
We’ve embraced William Blake without having any idea of what he was on about
Whose were those feet in ancient time that walked upon England’s mountains green? That William Blake assumed his readers were…
The short, unhappy life of Ivor Gurney — wounded, gassed and driven insane
Andrew Motion describes the inner turmoil of the neglected poet Ivor Gurney
Waiting for Gödel is over: the reclusive genius emerges from the shadows
The 20th-century Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel did his level best to live in the world as his philosophical hero Gottfried…
Over the rainbow: D.H. Lawrence’s search for a new way of life
Philip Hensher describes D.H. Lawrence’s restless search of a new way of life
A pawn in the Great Game: the sad story of Charles Masson
‘Everyone knows the Alexandria in Egypt,’ writes Edmund Richardson, ‘but there were over a dozen more Alexandrias scattered across Alexander…
Stirling Moss’s charmed life in the fast lane
‘Who do you think you are — Stirling Moss?’ a genially menacing traffic cop would ask a hapless motorway transgressor.…
Out-scooping the men: six women reporters of the second world war
Two war correspondents were hitching a lift towards Paris in August 1944 when a sudden wave of German bombers forced…
Arthur Bryant: monstrous chronicler of Merrie England
If you want to judge how much society has changed, you might do worse than visit a few secondhand bookshops.…
How St Ives became Barbara Hepworth’s spiritual home
‘To see a world in a grain of sand’, to attain the mystical perception that Blake advocated, requires a concentrated,…
Straight lines and grandiose schemes — Napoleon the gardener
Not content with imposing his will on nations, Napoleon tried to subdue nature too, says David Crane
The high and low life of John Craxton
Charm is a weasel word; it can evoke the superficial and insincere, and engender suspicion and mistrust. But charm in…
The jab that saved countless lives 300 years ago
This timely book celebrates one of the most remarkable women of the 18th century. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was so…
Apostle of modernism: Clive Bell’s reputation repaired
Clive Bell is the perennial supporting character in the biographies of the Bloomsbury group. The husband of Vanessa Bell, brother-in-law…
An unsuitable attachment to Nazism: Barbara Pym in the 1930s
Vicars, tea parties and village fetes were a far cry from Barbara Pym’s early enthusiasms, Philip Hensher reveals
Shock tactics: the flamboyant life of a Hanoverian maid of honour
At the masquerade celebrating the end of the War of Austrian Succession no one could take their eyes off the…
Bob Dylan — from respected young songwriter to Voice of a Generation
Bob Dylan didn’t just assimilate the Great American Songbook – he vastly increased its size and variety, says Andrew Motion
Sleeping with the enemy: the wartime story of ‘La Chatte’
The name ‘Carré’ immediately evokes the shadowy world of espionage. Ironically, however, few people today have heard of the real…
Working remotely: five formidable female anthropologists
I was first sent a version of Undreamed Shores: The Hidden Heroines of British Anthropology in June last year. I…
Philip Roth — most meta of novelists, and most honest
Philip Roth was prepared to stare the soul resolutely in the face – and for that he can be forgiven most things, says David Baddiel
Bugsy Siegel — the gangster straight out of a Hollywood movie
Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel was about as meta-gangsterish as a real life gangster could get. Born in the slums of Manhattan’s…
Edward Said — a lonely prophet of doom
Even Edward Said would not have claimed to be ‘the 20th century’s most celebrated intellectual’. But neither was he ‘Professor of Terror’, says Justin Marozzi
