Francis King 
Morality tales
Francis King celebrates Margaret Drabble’s distinguished career and vividly recalls their first meeting I first met a youthful Margaret Drabble when, already myself an established author, I was working at… Read more
A constant delight
With knobbly hands, shoulders bowed under the burden of arthritis, the little old woman tested the hasp of the front door and then turned to me, the last remaining guest… Read more
Miracles of compression
In the course of a lifetime of fiction reviewing, I have come to the conclusion that, though my colleagues are prepared doggedly to persevere with the reading of a novel… Read more
The odd couple
Some years ago now I bought from the artist Robert Buhler a pastel portrait of the composer Lennox Berkeley (reproduced above). Since I knew neither of the two men well… Read more
The witch in the machine
If one asks Albanians who is their greatest living writer, the immediate answer is Ismail Kadare, winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005. But the tone of… Read more
Why, oh why?
In my many years as a judge for the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography, I have been constantly surprised by the high proportion of books that deal with the… Read more
Not as sweet as he seemed
There are already three biographies of E. M. Forster: P. N. Furbank’s two- volume, authorised heavyweight; Nicola Beauman’s less compendious, more engaging middleweight; and my own bantamweight, little more than… Read more
Short and sweet
This little book of limericks, some as hard and glittering as shards of mica but a few surprisingly pallid and limp, at once presents a puzzle: the real name of… Read more
A great novelist
In a remarkable way the trajectory of Ivy Compton-Burnett’s reputation after her death in 1967 parallels that of George Meredith’s in 1909. In a remarkable way the trajectory of Ivy… Read more
Home thoughts from abroad
The subtitle, ‘The Anglo-American Gardens of Florence’, of this engaging and elegantly produced book, is misleading. The reclusive and narcissistic chatelaine of the Villa Gamberai in the days of its… Read more
Quite contrary
Eleven years after Jean Rhys’s death in 1979, Carole Angier published a monumental biography, a model of its kind, with 70 pages of notes and seven of bibliography. Lilian Pizzichini’s… Read more
A delicate talent
When, 15 years ago, Nicola Beauman embarked on this life of ‘the other Elizabeth Taylor’, the novelist and not the film star, she had been deprived of documents that would… Read more
Opposites attracted
Privately printed books are now all too often castigated as ‘vanity publishing.’ But at a time when publishers pay vast advances for the ghosted memoirs of people ‘celebrated’ for kicking… Read more
Culture-clash on the campus
Chicago, by Alaa al-Aswani Because I spend part of each winter in Egypt, friends from time to time ask me to recommend, not a guide, but a book that will… Read more
More nattering please
There are writers so prolific that one wants to shout, ‘Oh, do give it a rest!’ There are others so costive that one wants to shout, ‘Oh, do get a… Read more
A Soho stalwart
Like Angus Wilson, Julian Maclaren-Ross immediately grabbed the attention of Forties reviewers and readers with a series of short stories at once ruthlessly observant and irresistibly entertaining. However, unlike Wilson,… Read more
Tangerine dreams
In 1926, Tessa Codrington’s maternal grandfather, Jack Sinclair, once British Resident in Zanzibar, decided to buy for his wife a house on the ‘New Mountain’ in Tangier. One of Muriel… Read more
Deep, dark truths revealed
A few nights ago I was at a dinner party at which all those present knew each other far better than I knew them. For what seemed an interminable time… Read more
Thriving in adversity
This book takes up the story, told so memorably in his Clouds of Glory, of Bryan Magee’s early years in working-class Hoxton. In the first chapter, the now nine-year-old Magee,… Read more
The subtle art of suggestion
Prematurely, John McGahern published his Collected Stories 14 years before his death early this year. To prepare this Selected Stories he obsessively polished and ruthlessly cut stories that, even as… Read more
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