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“... and ‘spiteful’ where other versions (those of Louise and Aylmer Maude, Constance Garnett and Anthony Briggs, for example) have ‘wrath’, ‘fury’ or ‘virulence’ for the noun and a whole range of possibilities ...”

“... What are we saying when we say someone has ‘gone out of their mind’? The thing about going out of your mind is that the mind is still there; you can go back. You haven’t lost your mind. You’ve just gone out of it. The Russians use the same phrase. The Russian adjective meaning ‘crazy’, which is the same as the noun for ‘insane person’, is sumasshedshy, literally ‘who was going out of their mind ...”

“... too widely? Among living writers she does not mention Richard Altick, Raymond Williams or Anthony Smith. Nor does she speculate about newspapers and books, which co-existed easily or sometimes uneasily on W.H. Smith bookstalls, although she has a brief and useful section on periodicals which steadfastly dealt in opinions. She treats somewhat ...”

“... always there because he has never existed. He is an aspect of literary sensibility. As Barratt and Briggs observe, ‘in Pechorin Lermontov created a character whose unhealthy commitment to inauthentic “bookish” behaviour makes him the direct forebear of the Underground Man.’ This is certainly true, for heroes have always modelled themselves, or been ...”

“... Martin Ceadel’s begins in 1730 but is really about the first half of the 19th century, while Anthony Howe’s is really about the second half of that century although it continues until 1946. Ceadel’s is largely pioneering in its subject-matter, while Howe picks his way through a dense historiography. Both will become standard works. ‘For the best ...”

“... speeches were made. Mr Gil Thompson, Chief Executive of Manchester Airport, cited James Agate, Asa Briggs and J.B. Priestley on the splendours of Manchester’s cultural past. Mr Thompson didn’t quote Engels. Nor, understandably, John Ruskin: ‘Manchester can produce no good art, and no good culture.’ Despite the presence at the press conference of John ...”

“... was a historian to whom the phrase ‘daunting task’ acted like a starting pistol it was Asa Briggs, who was commissioned to write an official history of the BBC. The first volume, The Birth of Broadcasting, appeared in 1961; the fifth volume, Competition, taking the story up to 1974, came out in 1995. The full series amounts to some four thousand ...”

“... theme, boys, children, whatever, and in 1946 Methuen published a book written by Gamlin and Anthony Gilbert called Don’t Be Afreud! A Short Guide to Youth Control (The Book of the Weak). The book is just about as funny as it wants to be, with author photographs (‘aged 7 and 8 approx’) and a caption: ‘The authors on their way to the ...”