Neutral for fifty years in his work for the BBC, now he tells us what he thinks and thought about all those prime ministers, presidents, elections and scandals.
The recent unsealing of Eliot's letters revealed 1,131 written to Emily Hale, an American drama teacher. This careful book also considers the role of Vivienne, Valerie and Mary Trevelyan in ... read more
Born in Australia, she lived and worked in Hong Kong after WW2 and then for the UN in New York. After marrying the great Flaubert scholar Francis Steegmuller, she lived mostly on Capri. She ... read more
Recently outed as 'Deep Miaow', we understand that Larry, the Downing Street cat, has been an important source helping Gimson with his researches. Clearly a descendant of Tobermory.
The author must presumably be glad to have used an alias on reading Dominic Sandbrook's review in the Sunday Times. An interminable, banal and exploitative account of her two-year affair.
After her adventures with Bonnie Prince Charlie in the aftermath of Culloden, Flora MacDonald emigrated to North Carolina, married, and got caught up in the War of Independence. This is an a... read more
The first biography of the extraordinary writer who died in 2020. An officer in the 9th Lancers, Morris was posted to Trieste in 1945. He was the only journalist to accompany the 1953 Britis... read more
Born near Lemburg in Galicia - now in Ukraine - the author of The Radetzky March and several other outstanding works died in alcoholic exile on the eve of WW2. This is a powerful account of ... read more
Schmidt was an Austrian diplomat who served as Foreign Minister 1936-1938. With access to previously unpublished family papers, Bassett shows how this controversial figure in fact tried to m... read more
Barbara Cartland's daughter, Princess Diana's stepmother, who is said to left the Althorp estate with just a few bin bags of clothes. She was irrepressible, controversial - and perfectly man... read more
From the Persian sack in 614AD to the end of the Crusaders. Hosler argues that despite horrific acts of violence, the medieval period is also one of tolerance, when the city's conquerors oft... read more
In one generation, the Mongols reshaped the balance of world power, aided by the internecine struggles of the Byzantines, Seljuks, Crusaders and others.
An investigation of the people behind the art: how did the Greeks and Romans view their own bodies? What were their ideas of perfection and ugliness and how were these used in art? Some illu... read more
The biographer and poet (who is also an editor at Faber & Faber) explores the context of Eliot's poem through historical fragments, diaries and new research. Hollis' biography of Edward Thom... read more
Translation and interpretation are not straightforward, and never were... With matchless scholarship and sensitivity, Dr Barton compares multiple readings to reveal their ambiguities and int... read more
A beguiling approach to the relationship of artists to the sea, looking in detail at single works by ten artists: from Vanessa Bell's Studland Beach and Paul Nash's Winter Sea, via Alfred Wa... read more
Published to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the great impresario's birth. The names of those he worked with, those great and fabulous beings like Goncharova, Stravinsky, Picasso, Fokine,... read more
A short biography of Thomas Linley, the Georgian prodigy who was celebrated - with Mozart - by Burney as "the most promising geniusses of the age". But he died very young.
The late lamented drummer of the Rolling Stones, who died just over a year ago. He was also a jazz fiend, playing and recording with several other musicians. His deadpan demeanour set off hi... read more