Robert Dingley

Robert Dingley is preparing a book on apocalyptic imagery in 19th-century literature and art. He is a research lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford.

Angels and Dirt

Robert Dingley, 20 November 1980

‘One can find,’ wrote Stanley Spencer, ‘interesting and very nice things in dustbins and incinerators.’ Ferreting about among rubbish heaps struck him as ‘a distinctly entertaining and elevating pastime’ and the beads, scraps of china and old books he disinterred ‘really satisfied my highest thoughts’. Sustenance of a less elevated kind was provided by the discovery, in an incinerator, of ‘a whole bevy of unopened tins of bully beef in good condition’ on which the artist feasted for a fortnight.

Letter

Darkly facetious

18 September 1980

SIR: I am bemused by two sentences in Tim Hilton’s review of Kathryn Heleniak’s William Mulready (LRB, 18 September). Mr Hilton is discussing Lady Dilke: ‘She lacks a biographer. God be praised for His mercy, the George Eliot admirers (they are also the admirers of English water-colours) have so far left her alone.’ On general grounds, it is, I suppose, likely enough that some admirers of George...

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