Book review
Look! Shakespeare! Wow! George Eliot! Criminy! Jane Austen!
Among the precursors to this breezy little book are, in form, the likes of The Story of Art, Our Island…
Did Leonard Bernstein do too much to be a great artist?
Nigel Simeone’s title for his edition of Leonard Bernstein’s correspondence rings compellingly, novellistically, through the force of the definite article,…
Rebus is good, but not as sharp as he once was
Cig 1 Auld Reekie . . . Edinburgh . . . brewers’ town, stinking of beer, whisky, tweeness, gentility, hypocrisy,…
The Briton whose achievement equals that of the Pharaohs'
We constantly need to be reminded that the consequence of war is death. In the case of the first world…
How many positions are there in the Kamasutra?
Numbers, as every mathematician knows, do odd things. But they’re never odder than in the human context. Ever since we…
Through It All I’ve Always Laughed, by Count Arthur Strong - review
Fans of Count Arthur Strong (and yes I know he’s so Marmite you could spread him on a cheese sandwich)…
Blonde, beautiful — and desperate to survive in Nazi France
Around 200 Englishwomen lived through the German Occupation of Paris. Nicholas Shakespeare’s aunt Priscilla was one. Men in the street…
One Leg Too Few may be one biography too many
It’s no joke, writing about comedians. Their work is funny, their lives are not. Rightly honouring the former while accurately…
Why do the British love cryptic crosswords?
Everyone loves an anniversary and the crossword world — if there is such a thing — has been waiting a…
A place of paranoia, secrecy, corruption, hypocrisy and guilt
‘Is he a good writer? Is he pro-regime?’ an Iranian journalist in London once asked me of Hooman Majd. Majd…
How the Romantics ruined lives
It is perhaps the most celebrated house-party in the history of literary tittle-tattle: a two-house-party to be precise. Byron and…
Why do we pounce on Wagner's anti-Semitism, and ignore that of the Russian composers?
Philip Hensher on how an impassioned, chaotic group of amateur 19th-century composers created the first distinctively Russian music
What would Auden have deemed evil in our time? European jingoism
‘Goodbye to the Mezzogiorno’ was the first Auden poem that Alexander McCall Smith read in his youth. He discovered it…
Roman baths didn't make you clean — and other gems from Peter Jones's Veni, Vedi, Vici
Spectator readers need no introduction to Peter Jones. His Ancient and Modern column has instructed and delighted us for many…
How much can you tell about E.E. Cummings from this photo?
Do you think you can tell things about writers from the way they look in a painting or photograph? A…
Mary Killen: Sandi Toksvig is wrong about the placement of the pudding fork
Sandi Toksvig, as this book’s cover declares, ‘makes Stephen Fry look like a layabout’. The broadcaster, author, comedian, actress and…
Can virgins have babies?
Mrs Christabel Russell, the heroine of Bevis Hillier’s sparkling book, was a very modern young woman. She had short blonde…
The abstract art full of 'breasts and bottoms'
Is there any such thing as abstract art? Narratives and coherent harmonies seem to me always to emerge from the…
The man who shared a bed with D.H. Lawrence and Dylan Thomas (though not together)
Rhys Davies was a Welsh writer in English who lived most of his life in London, that Tir na nÓg…
Is Northamptonshire not scenic enough to visit?
I don’t know whether Bruce Bailey, a proud Northamptonshire man, agrees with the late Sir Nikolaus Pevsner that no one…
The thrill of the (postmodern neo-Victorian) chase
Charles Palliser’s debut novel The Quincunx appeared as far back as 1989. Lavish and labyrinthine, this shifted nigh on a…
Portobello's market mustn't be allowed to close
After reading Portobello Voices, I feel more strongly than ever that the unique Portobello market mustn’t be allowed to close.…
Bill Bryson's 'long extraordinary' summer is too long
Hands up Spectator readers who can remember the American celebrities Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Jack Dempsey, Zane Grey,…
How we beat Napoleon
We are accustomed to the thrill and glamour of the grands tableaux, but a nuts-and-bolts study of Napoleonic warfare makes for equally gripping reading, says David Crane
Village life can be gripping
Black Sheep opens biblically, with a mining village named Mount of Zeal, which is ‘built in a bowl like an…
