Biography
A conflict of wills
It might seem odd that Eric Ives, the acclaimed biographer of Anne Boleyn, should turn his attention to another executed Tudor queen, Lady Jane Grey.
The Father of Scottish Tourism
‘How do we make Scott more popular?’ The question ran round the table and none of us had an answer.
Give peace a chance
Time was, back in the Renaissance, when barely a book would be published which did not feature some lavish hero-worship of Cicero.
All the Men’s Queen
It is entirely possible that nobody, not even perhaps Queen Elizabeth herself, has ever known what she was really like, so great the charm, the smiling gaze, the gloved arm, the almost wistful voice, the lilting politeness, yet so strong the nerve, so dogged the spirit, so determined the trajectory.
A serious life
White-haired, red-faced, cheerfully garrulous, outgoing, pugnacious when nec- essary, portly: in his last years Senator Ted Kennedy strikingly resembled the Irish-American politicos of old, particularly his maternal grandfather, John Fitzgerald, ‘Honey Fitz,’ twice mayor of Boston.
Was his diary his downfall?
The audiotape of Alan Clark’s Diaries — barely mentioned in this rather Dr Watsonish, sensible shoe of a biography — is well worth hearing.
Concealing and revealing
In 1837 The Quarterly Review’s anonymous critic — actually, one Abraham Hayward — turned his attention to Charles Dickens, then in the first flaring of his popularity as the author of Sketches by Boz, The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist.
Dancing in the dark
Kenneth MacMillan was once described as ‘the Francis Bacon of ballet’ — not an analogy that gets one very far, but there’s something in it.
Reviving a reputation
William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies, by John Carey
From Russia with love
The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome, by Roland Chambers
Lost and found
Making An Elephant: Writing from Within, by Graham Swift
Moving swiftly on
Chaplin’s Girl, by Miranda Seymour
Love Child, by Allegra Huston
Raymond Carr at 90
Dons don’t usually appear to much advantage in fiction.
More than politics
A Fortunate Life, by Paddy Ashdown
Behind the wit
Home to Roost and Other Peckings by Deborah Devonshire, edited by Charlotte Mosley
Exit the hero
The Movement Reconsidered: Larkin, Amis, Gunn, Davie and their Contemporaries, edited by Zachary Leader
Living the pagan idyll
Frances Partridge, by Anne Chisholm
Dilly-dallying romance
Constable in Love, by Martin Gayford
Tales out of school
The Old Boys’ Network, by John Rae
A delicate talent
The Other Elizabeth Taylor, by Nicola Beauman
In a class of his own
Maurice Bowra: A Life, by Leslie Mitchell
A thoroughly good egg
Stanley I Presume, by Stanley Johnson
Lincoln’s legacy
Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Puzzling out the past
The Pattern in the Carpet, by Margaret Drabble
Opposites attracted
Before We Met, by Marcelle and Anthony Quinton
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