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“... There are three Vogues, published in New York, London and Paris. They are known to Condé Nast people as ‘Vogue’, ‘Brogue’ and ‘Frog’. Their characters have nothing in common. In order of hauteur, Frog is housed in an ambassadorial house in the Place du Palais Bourbon, and has long been edited by a handsome woman of diplomatic family, Edmonde Charles-Roux ...”

“... Elizabethan play The Old Wives’ Tale, a character called Jack interrogates the ‘wandering knight’ Eumenides: ‘Are you not the man, sir (deny it if you can, sir) that came from a strange place in the land of Catita, where Jackanapes flies with his tail in his mouth, to seek out a lady as white as snow and as red as blood?’ Jack is dead. The ...”

“... Trying to rejoin her estranged husband, Docile is captured by corsairs but delivered by the Knight of Malta, an accomplished libertine-philosopher who is pleased to find out that she is not a virgin: ‘Il faut un siècle pour les vaincre, et deux autres pour s’en defaire.’ We are learning to do without those ridiculous notions of Virtue, Honour and ...”

“... Few images from Medieval Europe are as familiar, or as potent, as that of the armoured knight on horseback, riding off in quest of adventure. It is an image that has inspired varied imaginative treatment down to our own times, in films like John Boorman’s vulgar and energetic epic Excalibur or Bresson’s stark, pessimistic Lancelot du Lac ...”

“... romance; the alba or dawn song (‘parting is such sweet sorrow’); the pastorela, in which a knight tries to seduce a shepherdess; the sirventes or protest song; and the tenso or debate poem, a genre favoured by the small but distinguished band of trobairitz or women poets. Of the translators, all poets, Ezra Pound is represented by 15 ...”

“... in defying Conservative legislation. ‘Why should the workers obey Tory law?’ thundered Ted Knight to enthusiastic applause. Ever since, Gerald Kaufman, as Environment Spokesman, has been trying to forget it. The other important contribution the book makes is in describing, from the point of view of the victim, the experience of excessive press ...”

“... her cult is teeming with new acolytes. Christina Ricci just played her in an adaptation of Therese Anne Fowler’s Z (costumes were the real stars there, especially Ricci’s big brown merkin). Jennifer Lawrence has been linked to an upcoming biopic, as has Scarlett Johansson. Unusual biopics, of course, since they contend that it’s better to be remembered ...”

“... On​ their West Country progress in the summer of 1535, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn visited Thornbury Castle near Bristol. Thornbury is an upmarket hotel now, a popular choice for guests working through their bucket list. Now that every narrative is a ‘journey’, TripAdvisor is an illuminating guide to what people expect when they go in search of the past ...”

“... couple’s moral fibre by imposing on the man an ethos of chivalrous courtesy. When a lovestruck knight like Lancelot or Tristan pledged fealty to his lady, as a vassal would to a feudal lord, he undertook to serve her selflessly, asking for no recompense save the privilege of adoring her. Precisely because she belonged to another man, he had to sublimate ...”

“... Elizabeth Young’; her brother-in-law thought her ‘a fine sensible woman’. Lady Philippina Knight left the following description: ‘Thomson was a very passionate man. It has been told me that his amiable Amanda ... and him one evening disagreeing, she pulled off his wig and threw it on the ground, and he threw a glass of punch at her; that she was a ...”

“... make it look extraordinary was to find an unexpected location. In a 1940s photograph Parkinson has Anne Chambers, who models a tight-waisted suit, crocodile handbag and neat bonnet, standing in a grimy alley. She looks down at a toy pistol, doubtless the property of the street kids in the background; in another photograph the same kids, mounted on a ...”

“... of times, and, like men, they could be taken captive. Despite the romance figure of the female knight whose opponents mistake her for a man, women who engaged in real combat probably did so at a distance. They might collect stones to use as ammunition, hurl missiles from a tower, or operate siege engines in default of men, but it’s hard to be certain ...”

“... other members of her family and her circle of acquaintance. Those of Eliza de Feuillide and Fanny Knight (and the latter’s diaries), to which Park Honan draws attention, are of particular interest; and others like them may yet be found. The discovery of the play Sir Charles Grandison, or The Happy Man, the work of Jane Austen and her niece Anna, suggests ...”

“... success. She was ambitious for literary fame, and adored the theatre. Bouncy and excitable – Anne Stott describes her at the age of 18 as ‘a practised and persistent attention-seeker’ – she wrote pastoral verse drama for performance by schoolgirls and helped produce plays at Bristol’s Theatre Royal, but her sights were set on London. Quite how ...”

“... a good book on Shakespeare’s tragedies – let alone the natural successor to Bradley and Wilson Knight claimed in the publisher’s ...”