It is a telling irony that a historical novel could be the quintessential literary work of the post-truth era. Perhaps no other novel better captures the malleability of truth than The Mirror and the ...

In the essays known as the Federalist Papers, published in 1787–8, the American statesman James Madison deplored ‘the blunders of our governments’. What, he asked, ‘are all the repealing, explaining ...

Thomas Cromwell has lately been enjoying a renaissance. Prior to 2009, if people had heard of him at all, they most likely thought of the brutish and cynical fixer in Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All ...

They say that the secret of comedy is timing, but time kills most jokes. The eclipse of the sensibility that hatched a joke is sure to prevent the splitting of sides. Chaplin’s tragicomedy was more ...

Early on in what is, I hope, the first instalment of his autobiography, Frederic Raphael describes how, as a schoolboy at Charterhouse, he disqualified himself from sitting for a closed scholarship to ...

Perfectly timed for the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, the fourth volume of Jonathan Sumption’s epic narrative of the Hundred Years’ War takes the story from Richard II’s death in 1399 ...

One of the most important facts about Michel Houellebecq – usually overlooked in favour of his nihilism, alleged racism and other attention-seeking provocations – is that he is a first-rate prose ...

Steve Richards’s new book is an engaging survey of modern prime ministers. These leaders – from Harold Wilson to Theresa May, whose defenestration is alluded to in skilful late additions – qualify as ...

Under its longest-serving editor, Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair was that rare thing – a New York society magazine that published serious journalism. @PeterPeteryork looks at what Carter got right. Peter ...

The Gentry is a depressing title for a book, which conjures up uncharitable images. It makes me think of a hangdog Etonian, stubborn, aloof, courteous, risk-averse and mean with his money; a tall, ...

Posterity judges us by what we do, our friends by what we are. People whose lives have been more essence than action are frustrating subjects for biographers. If those who remember him are to be ...

Writing a life of Marlowe ought to be very much easier than writing one of Shakespeare. For one thing, the book can be much shorter. Both poets were born early in 1564, with similar social origins, ...