‘All I desire is fame’
Lucy Hughes-Hallett admires the brave and wayward Duchess of Newcastle, whose idiosyncratic writings astonished 17th-century English society
The world turned upside down
Few periods match the British 17th century for turmoil and idealism.No wonder historians have repeatedly been drawn to it, says Lucy Hughes-Hallett
‘As capricious as a wild mare’
In 1930, when she was 19 years old, Edda Mussolini married Galeazzo Ciano. His father was a loyal minister in…
The house-party from hell
It is perhaps the most celebrated house-party in the history of literary tittle-tattle: a two-house-party to be precise. Byron and…
