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“... Burke and Hare’s day. He enlisted the support of England’s leading forensic pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and the St Pancras coroner Bentley Purchase. Spilsbury, who had provided the evidence that sent Dr Crippen and more than a hundred others to the gallows, explained to Montagu which causes of death could pass for drowning or exposure. Purchase ...”

“... more than Venus and Mars. The reputation of An Allegory soon went downhill; by 1951 the curator Martin Davies wrote that it was by ‘some feeble imitator of Botticelli’. It is certainly, according to all the tests, an old picture: the support, ground, pigments and medium are appropriate for Italy around 1500. Science in this case can only say that the ...”

“... is not mentioned (except in a brief footnote) yet ‘Hesse, Grand Duke of’ rates an entry. Martin Buber also is missing; in his place in the index is Sir George Buchanan, a British diplomat. Ber Borochov is out; good old Bob Boothby is in. Franz Rosenzweig is invisible, but there are four references to Lord John Russell. Forget ...”

“... maintain his wife, two exes, seven children and their posh educations, expensive homes, an Aston Martin DB5 and his subscription to White’s. (‘I know White’s is a shits’ club, of course it is,’ one of its members had told him, ‘but at least we’re the best shits.’) But the money wasn’t enough. He also wanted excitement – the ...”

“... something of a reputation as Leftists. The two officers at the centre of this molehunt were Arthur Martin and Peter Wright. Wright was a brilliant scientist and a grammar-school patriot who always doubted the patriotism of his public-school superiors. He held extreme right-wing views. His devotion to rooting out Lefties at the top placed him at the head of the ...”

“... does bring happiness: poverty and wealth have both failed,’ says Kin Hubbard’s creation Abe Martin. Since the pursuit of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ has proved so perplexingly difficult in practice, discussion of the philosophical foundations of utilitarianism can easily appear to be otiose. Sometimes it seems obvious that the ...”

“... the shipwreck so briskly dealt with in the two recent biographies of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Robert Bernard Martin’s book, published last year, summarises the information in two competent pages. In Norman White’s Hopkins: A Literary Biography his comments on what happened, scattered passim through the relevant chapter, are even more cursory. Obviously ...”

“... an ambush in Kabul province. Sarkozy spoke of their ‘supreme sacrifice’, his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, talked about ‘the memory of their courage’. This affair was scandalous too – there were worries about logistical support and intelligence, and above all France’s involvement in the war – but not in the same way as Svarusko’s ...”

“... the heights of Gladstone. All that previous work on him, including the huge Companion Volumes to Martin Gilbert’s exhaustive official biography (‘largely unread’, Best’s publisher claims), means that it is possible to do him justice without – theoretically – leaving one’s study. That is what Jenkins seems to have done. His sources are ...”

“... in his investigations – which sometimes drag on for months – are modelled on the adventures of Martin Beck, the hero of a ten-novel cycle of skilfully plotted, atmospheric police procedurals by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, published between 1965 and 1975. They were written, Sjöwall said, ‘to show the reader that under the official image of ...”

“... he also made it possible to see his brother as an interestingly troubled victim of their father, Bernard, who emerges in the memoir as one of the great Edwardian monster-dads. ‘The author and barrister Bernard Hamilton’, as he styled himself, began to generate a considerable body of anecdote on his 21st birthday, when ...”

“... of by its creator in Beethoven’s Kakadu Variations for piano trio): but who today has heard of Bernard Anselm Weber’s Deodata, Peter von Winter’s Das Unterbrochene Opferfest, Friedrich von Drieberg’s Don Tacagno, Friedrich Himmel’s Fanchon, Anton Fischer’s Das Hausgesinde or Carl Ludwig Hellwig’s Die Bergknappen? One opera that prompted an ...”

“... Since Success, Martin Amis has been involved in a spectacular case of alleged plagiarism. As the apparently aggrieved author, Amis showed himself notably unresentful and unlitigious. Indeed, he took the offence as an occasion to ruminate good-naturedly on the oddities of literary ‘borrowing’. It’s relevant to bring this up since Other People depends very largely on a trick which is usually thought to be someone else’s trademark ...”

“... by Geoffrey Skelton, and is accompanied by the splendidly detailed notes of the German edition by Martin Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack, with additions by the translator. The second volume covers the period 1878 to the day before Wagner’s death in February 1883 – just over five years – while the first volume deals with nine. Cosima now knew Wagner ...”

“... Angleton became convinced that Wilson was a Russian agent and he conveyed this certainty to Arthur Martin and Peter Wright. Arthur Martin took on board Angleton’s ‘certainty’ that Hugh Gaitskell, Wilson’s predecessor as leader of the Labour Party, had been poisoned by the Russians so that Wilson could take over the ...”