The picture on the dustwrapper of Suffer and Survive shows a genial-looking Victorian gent with a serious moustache — and it does not tell a lie. The physiologist J.S. Haldane was genial, serious, and extremely Victorian. He was an obstinate man of principle. He was a rigorous experimentalist with a philosophical bent. He was loyal
Elizabeth Marsh was an undistinguished member of an unremarkable dynasty. She was neither famous nor infamous and had no conspicuous talent except, perhaps, for survival. Her father’s family was involved in maritime activity but of her mother we know nothing. Elizabeth herself was married to James Crisp, an entrepreneur of uncertain fortunes from whom she
The Slade of the years immediately before the first world war has always been fertile ground for novelists. As Sarah MacDougall pointed out in her engaging biography of Mark Gertler, Gertler himself and his fellow students have provided copy for anyone and everyone from D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf to Katherine Mansfield, V.S. Pritchett and
Last March, after an unexpected illness, Michael Dibdin died at his home in Seattle. His death came as a shock to fans everywhere of crime fiction. Dibdin had just turned 60. His Aurelio Zen mysteries are distinguished by their edgy, convincing police work, mordant dialogue and the picture they give of social unease and mayhem
The current must-see exhibition at the Museum of London, 150 London Wall, London EC2 (The Missing Link? until 8 August) includes a limestone sarcophagus containing a headless male skeleton. Discovered in the foundations of the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, just off Trafalgar Square, it has been dated by archaeologists to around AD 410, the traditional
Francis King’s new novel was published a few weeks ago. Francis King’s new novel was published a few weeks ago. Nothing, you may say, remarkable about that. He is among the most professional of authors; writing novels is what he does. Well, yes, of course, but it is certainly worth remarking that his first novel
Littlestone Days After the golf, the bridge and the cocktails,after the sets of tenniswith Noël Coward and the Maughamslooking on from the balcony,‘Ah, the dear boys!’ after sherry and theatricals,the dinner-dances and the outings,after charades and canastaand evenings with the gramophone, you alone of them would turn your backand cycle into the wind, then strideyour
