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“... to juggle the names of explorers, famous in their day, but now known only to Arctic buffs, such as John and James Clark Ross, Rae, Pullen, Collinson, M’Clure, Austin, Ommanney, Richardson, Penny, DeHaven, Kane, Forsyth, Bellot, Kennedy, Belcher, Inglefield, M’Clintock – and names of ships, such as ...”

“... William Small was teaching Rhetoric and Belles Lettres to Jefferson at William and Mary. By 1768 John Witherspoon from the Laigh Kirk, Paisley, was basing his Princeton lectures on Blair’s Rhetoric. In 1781 Wither spoon coined the pejorative term ‘Americanism’, by analogy with ‘Scotticism’. Strong connections between Scottish and American cultures ...”

“... in the early faux-naïf landscapes made in the late 1920s – the firm mono-line draughtsmanship took over later – but the colour schemes are already established. Ben Nicholson, ‘1932 (crowned head – the queen)’ The other dominant strand in Nicholson’s work consists of white or near white reliefs. Words like ‘purity’ and ...”

“... though I’d have thought the chances of him persuading his mamma to come are pretty slim. John Gielgud was once telling me about Mrs Simpson and how smart she was. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘she’d have made a disastrous queen. Didn’t go to the theatre at all.’ 19 January. Alan Bates opens tonight at the Barbican in the RSC production of Antony ...”

“... have been massive: Roy Jenkins’s weighed in at 1.5 kilos and a thousand pages. A great virtue of John Keegan’s is its brevity. Here is the saga in miniature. Keegan’s Churchill is pre-eminently a man of war and a man of words. The Army made him physically, intellectually and morally – Sandhurst and the years in India and Africa ‘must be counted among ...”

“... he appears before me, I could not stop myself kissing him.’ Unlike his tight-fisted father, King John, Henry was generous to a fault, showering all around him with precious rings, brooches, luxurious robes, huge consignments of firewood and deer from his forests. The gifts he received from others he regifted, also on a heroic scale. When he ran out of cash ...”

“... authority he could find. ‘He was Christ revisited,’ remarked an Australian actress he briefly took up with. On occasion Dylan himself explicitly tried on the martyr’s role: ‘I have a death-thing, I know ...’ he told his official biographer Robert Shelton in one of his more revealing interviews, as if confiding to an apostle. The concerts themselves ...”

“... success, and ending with some surprisingly detached reflections on Mrs Thatcher from the pen of John Vincent. As a final savoury, Tony Benn, Michael Fraser, David Marquand and David Butler sum up the entire era. The argument starts with the first and by some way the best piece in the collection, Paul Addison’s essay on ‘The Road from 1945’. Addison ...”

“... condition the premises may be’. One party of casual passers-by, seeing workmen and open doors, took a look inside and were surprised to find Gilbert in residence. Contemporary photographs show dark, elaborate interiors in which dramatist and architect (Harold Peto took 7 Collingham Gardens himself) lived like merchant ...”

“... before the committee’. Almost all the Republicans in Congress, with the distinct exception of John McCain, opposed the publication of the findings, and their highest card was the absence of testimony by agents. Yet written materials of sufficient quantity and authority may have a credibility that only the most reliable of witnesses could claim. The ...”

“... Ireland both helped affirm his manly status. ‘Now, more than ever,’ Fletcher tells us, ‘he took on the role of the man as suggested by the language of manhood, defending his honour against the kingdom’s enemies, giving out manly largesse as befitted his estate, and receiving his subjects and foreign dignitaries with the ceremonial recognition of ...”

“... it with phosphorus and calcium, to the detriment of rare alpine plants.A delicate issue. The John Muir Trust and the other owners of the land around Ben Nevis have constructed a ‘Memorial Site for Contemplation’ at the foot of the mountain, and are removing the memorials from the open hill. As for ashes, well, the Nevis Partnership says: try throwing ...”

“... Robert Skidelsky’s John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain completes a remarkable biography. No other biographer of Keynes is likely to surpass it, and everyone who has an interest in the intellectual and public life of this country is in Skidelsky’s debt. This third volume starts in 1937, where the second volume left off ...”

“... cloud at the end of Schumann’s life has been seen as overshadowing everything on the way, but John Worthen’s biography refuses idle teleology. An emeritus professor of English at the University of Nottingham, Worthen has written about D.H. Lawrence and the Wordsworth circle and makes no claim to musical expertise; but he has been seized by the Schumann ...”

“... horseback. William’s humble gifts of fruit and wine could scarcely compete. The Mongol court took more interest in his precious vestments and illuminated manuscripts, donated by Louis for the celebration of Mass. But possession of these treasures only made William’s situation worse: he declined to offer them as gifts, fearing that they would be defiled ...”