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Saki in Singapore
The obvious choice of reading for a trip to Singapore must be Rudyard Kipling, one of the writers associated with Raffles Hotel which is named after Britain’s colonial administrator par …
Read MoreEminent Victorian
For they stood in one of the famous wood and common lands of Southern England – great beeches towering overhead – glades opening to right and left – ferny paths …
Read MoreTreasured Possessions
“March 3rd 83Dear SirThanks for your note; the gout sticks to me so that I am still unable to make any appointment, but I will come on the very first …
Read MoreCreating a monster
To Oxford last week to see the Bodleian Library’s exhibition Shelley’s Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family. The exhibition looks at the way in which Shelley’s posthumous image …
Read MoreBostin books
Santa’s been and gone and I hope he has left everyone something they wanted, particularly in books. As usual, the old fellow has come up with the literary goods for …
Read MoreBeaus in tight breeches
A few days ago I went to the Thomas Lawrence exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I was especially interested in Lawrence, many of whose paintings I had seen in …
Read MoreThe Little Sprite
I’ve just finished reading Janet Todd’s marvellous Death and the Maidens. The story of Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughter Fanny is one of the saddest I have ever come across. Fanny seems …
Read MoreWriting for Nobody
I love reading other people’s diaries. Obviously I mean the historical ones, which makes it alright to pry. Or, if I was interested in the living, then it would be …
Read MoreFree at Last
One thing I saved up from my mini account of what I saw of the Historical Novel Society’s Conference in Manchester in October was the workshop Creative Writing, Creative Reading: …
Read MoreUnreadable books
One night when I was very young I was crossing a bit of wasteland in Sheffield when I said to my companion, “I never leave a book unfinished.” Struggling to …
Read MorePlaying Away
Last Saturday I enjoyed seven plays, four of them at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond and three in the London Library. The Orange Tree – a wonderful theatre I’ve mentioned …
Read MoreSpeculating Other Lives
I’ve been reading two biographies of Mary Wollstonecraft: Janet Todd’s Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life, and Lyndall Gordon’s Mary Wollstonecraft: A New Genus (which I have only recently started). I …
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