All you need is love

‘Cora sits at the bay window, writing, in a fat manuscript book with a lock, about a man she once married … and wishing in the nicest possible way that he was dead.’ At the beginning of this novel, Cora, former madame of the Hotel de Dream, Jacksonville, Florida, finds herself alone and lonely in Surrey, England, where she has no social, financial, legal or emotional status. Her lawful husband, the one she wants dead, is too concerned about his reputation to grant her a divorce. Her ‘real’, common-law husband is Stephen Crane, an American adventurer, acclaimed author of The Red Badge of Courage. He is the love of Cora’s life, but his wanderlust has driven him to report the war in Cuba, beyond her reach.

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Ross Clark

Labour is out of its depth with electric cars

‘Some of this story is true’, asserts Paul Ferris by way of a preface.