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“... he shows me round display a refined Modernist apprehension of the ever-changing subtleties of light, the multiplicity of whites, and the ambiguous margins between inside and outside. There is grandeur and intimacy, and surprising relations between the two. Unlike most new Houston domestic architecture, the houses are both practical and beautiful. Where ...”

“... behaviour once Miss Keays had published her version, which showed it in a less than flattering light. The Sun, alone out of Fleet Street dailies, took the view that his private vacillations cast serious doubt on his political ability: ‘The picture that emerges’ from Miss Keays’s statement is devastating to Mr Parkinson’s reputation. He emerges ...”

“... confinement. He has slowly progressed from a convict’s cell, and brutal guards who turned on the light every 15 minutes all round the clock, to a suite of rooms, a choice of menus, a daily newspaper and colour television. From that newspaper every item relating to the Third Reich and the Second World War is still carefully cut out by the prison guards before ...”

“... quote: This was not a young man making love to a girl. This was the meeting of twin souls. The light covering of flesh was so transmuted with ecstasy that early passion became a heavenly embrace of white fiery flame. There are joys so complete, so all perfect, that one should not survive them. Ah why did not my burning soul find exit that night, and ...”

“... provides the setting for Part One. Buckled asphalt along neglected roads, rank verges, dispersed light industry, dilapidated churches, docks: Robinson evokes the urban decay overlaid with gestures of improvement, time-warped, which is Merseyside. His palette may be sombre, his manner austere. Beside a poet like Iain Sinclair – whose imploded epic Lud Heat ...”

“... she had to adapt to on the Kent coast that fired her curiosity by its difference: the cool, clear light, the unimpressive trees, the bijou residences gummed to a cliff edge. Villas for sale became a hobby. Like a true ‘Fagin pupil’, as she put it, Bowen snuck in through unlatched back windows so that she and her mother could inspect at their leisure the ...”

“... Dissidence and Cultural Change’ is what they call their MA course at Sussex (where Alan Sinfield teaches), which is not far, I guess, from what used to be called ‘Homosexuality in History’ with some adultery and masturbation thrown in, perhaps, for good measure. Same-sex passion is Sinfield’s preferred term in The Wilde Century, although ...”

“... covered by this selection of his letters. (The earlier ones came out as In Broken Images in 1982.) Alan Bold’s index to the MacDiarmid volume has no entry for Graves, any more than Paul O’Prey’s has for MacDiarmid. The two poets, though contemporaries, might have been inhabiting different planets. And yet the impression one gets from the two books is not ...”

“... a matter of the Left giving a last, sad cheer for one of its most versatile and prolific heroes. Alan O’Connor’s bibliography of works by and about Williams covers an extraordinary 47 pages and includes 29 critical works, five novels, five short stories and five plays by Williams (which, together, have sold over a million copies in Britain alone), as ...”

“... hovering 140 feet above the turf, supported by pylons and an inner rim of tinted glass to let in light and cut out infra-red. Ten thousand people will be able to dine at the stadium, which also has a thirst-quenching 750 metres of bar. Football is selling out to the hospitality suite (the Stade de France has 148 of them), the suits and the sponsors. In ...”

“... as Liberal MP for Market Harborough. He was a dedicated rowing coach, and wrote quantities of light verse, often about rowing, for Punch. He married Alice Davis, a strong-minded New Englander, twenty years younger than himself. Their family consisted of three girls – Helen, the indulged Rosamond, Beatrix – and, at long last, the boy John. Their ...”

“... The business flourished for two centuries, finally closing in 1859. Vauxhall’s special status, Alan Borg and David Coke argue in this hefty antiquarian tome, lies in its originality as a commercial venture, the changes it triggered in the social and cultural life of London, the extreme heterogeneity of the mingling crowds, the mass audience the gardens ...”

“... Bawden did make digs about the commission for Coronation mugs) – the biographical parts of Alan Powers’s catalogue essay make that clear.* It was not just that a style developed in the service of Fortnum and Mason wouldn’t work as agitprop. The disengagement which characterised the style Ravilious had developed was both personal and part of the ...”

“... that in 1790 and bring down the wrath of Edmund Burke, and Locke probably construed 1688-9 in that light: but the Whigs’ most reliable support was the view that James II had left them in the lurch and had left them to find the nearest (Protestant) descendant to replace him. Their strongest card was continuity. This created another problem. The hereditary ...”

“... Griffin has perhaps made a mistake in choosing so few letters that show the skittish and light-hearted side of their relationship: Russell was capable of writing affectionate nonsense, and is both a more engaging and more interesting figure when he does. The one man who emerges with his reputation entirely unscathed, however, is not a ...”