Denis Diderot, at Catherine the Great’s insistent invitation, spent the autumn and winter of 1773–4 in St Petersburg. It was the worst time of year for an ageing philosopher, underdressed, plagued by ...

In 1939, Myles Hildyard was aged twenty-four, living in London and about to take his Bar finals. There were many aspects to Hildyard that made him unusual: he came from a family of Nottinghamshire ...

What happened to the British working class? E P Thompson dated its ‘making’ to the early 19th century and wrote: ‘working class presence was, in 1832, the most significant factor in British political ...

John Adamson: 1688 and All That - The Last Invasion of England: 1688 and the Dutch Armada by Arthur der Weduwen ...

Perhaps the most revealing Roy Cohn anecdote in this extraordinary book concerns the time, in 1955, when the infamous lawyer took Barbara Walters out on a first date. Cohn picked up the TV star in his ...

True Believers - Sunrise by Téa Obreht ...

In 2014 he wrote Napoleon the Great, which made the case for bracketing his subject with Alexander, Peter and Frederick. That was a full biography which portrayed Napoleon in action, both on the ...

All the Write Stuff - A History of the Novel in Britain by Philip Hensher ...

This is a truly excellent book, one of the best it has been my pleasure to read in the line of duty for years. Joanne Harris achieves everything a novelist should aim for, with no sense of effort or ...

In March 1850, a children’s publishing organisation known as the American Sunday School Union (ASSU) invited its adult supporters to reflect on the books of their youth. Responses to the survey, which ...

When a ‘real nice gentleman and good ol’ boy’ from South Carolina, scion of a family who had dominated the justice system in his county for generations, was sensationally accused of shooting his wife ...

Giles Milton is the author of more than a dozen well-crafted and engaging history books that typically use biography of an emblematic individual as a window into a period. In his new book, illustrated ...