Richard Shone 
Into the limelight
The online accessibility of British population censuses has resulted in an outpouring of ‘who and how we were’, keeping amateur genealogists, local historians and social commentators extremely busy. Barry Anthony’s… Read more
The sage of Aix
Like Mont St-Victoire itself, looming over the country to the north of Aix-en-Provence — seen unexpectedly, then just as suddenly hidden, now clear-cut against the sky, at other times a… Read more
The past is another city
This absorbing book is — in both format and content — a much expanded follow-up to the same author’s very successful pictorial anthology Lost London of 2010. It replicates some… Read more
Oh brother!
Long in the writing, deep in research, heavy to hold, this is the latest of umpteen biographies of Vincent van Gogh (1853-90). But it should be said straightaway that it… Read more
A lightning tour
In her foreword to this short study of Virginia Woolf, Alexandra Harris writes that ‘it is meant as a first port of call for those new to Woolf and as… Read more
Painting the town together
This book recounts a terrible story of self-destruction by two painters who, in their heyday, achieved considerable renown in Britain and abroad. Robert Colquhoun (1914-62) and Robert MacBryde (1913-66), both… Read more
The optimism of a suicide
A postal strike would have been a disaster for Van Gogh. Letters were his lifeline and consolation. Not only did he receive through the mail his regular allowance from his… Read more
From worthless to priceless
A combination of art history ‘lite’ and the personal touch — a common yoking together these days, even in books supposedly of art history ‘full strength’ — makes for, in… Read more
Sinister levity of an all-seeing spider
As an an outstanding English painter and a delectable personality, Edward Burra deserves this entertaining biography. It should be admitted, however, that because Burra was a letter writer of great… Read more
Richard Shone on Leonard Woolf
The large garden at Monk’s House, Rodmell, in Sussex, bounded on one side by the village street, and on the other by gently sloping ground towards the River Ouse, was… Read more
The calm and solid Cubist
The personalities of only a handful of artists are known to the public at large. Most live on through their work with, perhaps, a ticket of biographical cliché attached to… Read more
The painter properly portrayed
We are continually told that biography is the dominant literary expression of the age, that Britain, in particular, is a nation of biographers, and that the new Oxford Dictionary of… Read more
The girl who played Ophelia
‘A truly extraordinary achievement,’ trumpets A. N. Wilson on the jacket of this book. In a sense, of course, he is right. Lucinda Hawksley deserves praise for making something substantial… Read more
Verdict as open as ever
Readers of the thrillers of the American writer Patricia Cornwell will find elements of her new book familiar but others oddly different. Her novels are fiction closely based on fact;… Read more
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