Hemingway
How the myth of Paris liberating itself was born
When De Gaulle persuaded Eisenhower to allow the French 2nd armoured division to lead a diversion into the city on 25 August 1944, it was his own political future he was thinking of
The sacred and profane
The great American writer is ill-served by this new biography – but luckily we still have her own writing to tell us who she truly was
First-rate firsts
It has become something of a truism among writers’ groups and in articles offering advice on how best to secure…
These I have loved
In the preface to his great collection of essays The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden claimed: ‘I prefer a critic’s notebooks…
Hurricane Lolita
Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov’s nostalgic memoir, reflects on his life from the age of three to 41, taking us from…
High life
The secret of eternal youth, according to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, is arrested development, and the penny dropped last week. The…
High life
On board the Weatherbird off the Peloponnese The old girl groans and creaks as we tack time and again, the…
