British Intelligence
‘I secreted a venom which spurted out indiscriminately’ – Muriel Spark
Frances Wilson’s mesmerising biography of one of the past century’s most singular writers is especially enlightening on the ‘domestic savagery’ often required of a great artist
The British Socrates
After vital work for British intelligence during the second world war, why did J.L. Austin devote the rest of his life to considering literally asinine questions?
The man who disappeared
In the pre-dawn hours of 20 September 1918, a train, its headlamp off, heading eastwards out of Kransnovodsk on the…
Garbo’s mystique
With two new biographies of Kim Philby out, an espionage drama by Sir David Hare on BBC2, and the recent…
