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“... Alex Comfort​ was exhausting. After meeting him, the pioneering sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson swapped notes. ‘If we could learn to produce on a 24-hour level the way he does, I think we’d probably have it made,’ Johnson said. ‘Five or six hours is all I can stand,’ Masters replied ...”

“... Ian​ Hamilton once recounted in the LRB (22 October 1992) that ‘when William F. Buckley Jr sent a copy of his essays to Norman Mailer, he pencilled a welcoming “Hi, Norman!” in the index, next to Mailer’s name.’ The index discloses a lot about the nature of a book, and the passions of its author, more than is sometimes realised (‘acknowledgments’ are similarly illuminating ...”

“... Freud must be very unsettling to necessitate such cushions. Enright’s poem ‘Anecdote from William IV Street’ – about a request for the works of Freud and for an artwork of Jesus Christ – succeeds in its succinct ruefulness, the melting sentiment (as Eliot said of Goldsmith) just held in check by the precision of the language. But when telling us ...”

“... The ‘popular’ writers are people like Arnold Wesker, H.E. Bates, Kingsley Amis and William Golding. Needless to say, the idioms which the BBC, the newspapers and the ‘popular’ writers are free to indulge in are those which pass the cultural censorship which dictionary-makers themselves exercise. So there is no breaking out of the ...”

“... naval officer striated with pride, it came to seem, if reports are true, like a life sentence. William Shawcross, in his expertly genuflecting biography of the queen mother, shows us a Duke of Edinburgh just after his wedding, a young man in love writing to his mother-in-law of the new unity he has just achieved and hopes will bless the future. ‘Lilibet ...”

“... Mullah’ of Somaliland, who was bombed into submission within a week. Arthur (Bomber) Harris was a squadron leader in the Third Afghan war of 1919, and pioneered the strategy of ‘control without occupation’ in Iraq, which entailed sprinkling fire on straw-roofed huts: ‘within forty-five minutes,’ ...”

“... removal of the chains of lunatics at Bicêtre, and the establishment of the York Retreat by William Tuke, inaugurate the psychiatric enlightenment. The development of the asylum bears witness to the increasing ability to distinguish between the mad and the poor, idle and criminal classes, and to attempts by various reformers, notably the Tukes and John ...”

“... library with anything to say (in English) about sex. It also seemed a good idea to consult Marvin Harris, who had written a history of anthropology himself and who at that time taught the history course required of all entering graduate students. When I told him of my plans, he was appalled at my theoretical naivety and seemed to fear for my intellectual life ...”

“... about reviewers etc’, as Graham lets slip with pride in a letter to the poet and editor William Montgomerie. Even mild patronage from Thomas was enough to encourage Graham to dedicate himself, romantically, impractically and single-mindedly, to writing poetry. With the exception of a short period of teaching in 1942-43 and a disastrous spell as an ...”

“... judge robbed by the brothers was said to have ‘sold the laws as if they were oxen or cows’. In William Langland’s Piers Plowman is a reference to ‘Folvilles’ laws’, under which men were entitled to ‘ride and recover’ by force from wicked men what had been unlawfully acquired. Piers Plowman also contains references to that ‘deeply obscure ...”

“... Chang and Eng were unmoved. Their response, taken as dictation by their former manager Charles Harris, was: ‘let Mrs C. look into her own heart and they feel confident she will discover that the great loving & liking was not for their own sakes – but for the sake of the said Dollars.’ By 1839, with more than $10,000 in savings, the twins decided to ...”

“... was responsible (both ‘Henry Frederic Howard Fitzwilliam of London’ and ‘Edmund Arthur William Mortimer of Liverpool’ feature as husband to ‘Jane Austen of Steventon’).In January 1796, Austen wrote to Cassandra about Thomas Lefroy, the man it has been speculated she hoped to marry. She teases Cassandra with an account of their behaviour at a ...”

“... he only needed control of the Channel for six hours to effect an invasion of England. After all, William of Orange had managed it in the autumn of 1688; and Bonnie Prince Charlie had got as far south as Derby with his ragamuffin army in December 1745. The notion of an impregnable island fortress was less convincing when 1688 and 1745 remained fresh in the ...”

“... is limited and it is hardly a complaint to say that some significant details could be added. A Mr Harris, for instance, about whom nothing is known save that he married the daughter of a British consul in Naples, is included, and it could have been mentioned that for want of an Anglican clergyman the ceremony was conducted by none other than the great German ...”

“... by the fact that St Ronan’s, Worthing was a spectacularly sporty school. The headmaster, Stanley Harris, had captained England at football and was also a distinguished cricketer and rugby player. Lancaster, an only child who had lost his father two years earlier at the Battle of the Somme, proved himself as the terms came and went to be uniformly hopeless at ...”