King of Iceland
‘He was ambitious, diversely talented and appreciably amoral; a measure of self-discipline came later, with reluctance’ Australian Dictionary of…
The Impossible Exile
The Impossible Exile – Stefan Zweig at the End of the World, George Prochnik, Other Press, New York, 2014,…
Katherine Mansfield’s Russian Healers
During the last two years of her life, Katherine Mansfield, ailing with tuber-culosis, was attracted to her Russian ‘healers’ in…
The Journey
i.m. Charlotte Annie Bodsworth Grantham: 1944 The long road from the farm was longer then, the chickens fed, breakfast…
The Girl of the Atomic Bomb
Opera Holland Park, May-August 2014 Giacomo Puccini, La Fanciulla del West Gioachino Rossini, Il Barbiere di Siviglia Francesco Cilea,…
The Rhyme of the Reddleman’s Daughter Part III
For mile on mile, and mile on mile, echoing around,
shrunk spine rattling coughs,
and a moaning helpless sound.
In the Shadow of War The Balkan Century
Sarajevo, on the 28th of June in the year ‘14, was en fête. A unique foreign delegation was coming, and the hotels were booked up; the pavements along the river were filling, the crowd’s diversity appropriate to this historically so cosmopolitan city. Could any have said exactly why they were there, or what they were looking at? Put face-to-face with History, it’s difficult to know quite where we stand.
A Basic Mistake
William S. Burroughs: A Life, Barry Miles, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014, 740pp, £30 (hardback) Considering the profligate varieties and…
Unequivocal Gent?
The Setting Sun: A Memoir of Empire and Family Secrets, Bart Moore-Gilbert, Verso Books, 2014, 288pp, £14.99 (hardback) Bart…
My London
Harry Mount is the eighth writer in the My London series. Harry is a journalist, whose latest book is…
The Paradox That Was Percy Grainger
Most people have probably heard the tune popularly known as ‘In an English Country Garden’, but equally probably most…
The Sage of Chelsea
The only known surviving diaries of a Victorian regional newspaper editor were penned by my great great uncle Anthony…
The Old West Lothian Question
Bruce Anderson’s article was commissioned by The London Magazine in response to the recent Scottish referendum. There is a…
Piazza di Spagna, 1860
On the Spanish Steps there sprawls in original sun Il Padre Eterno with his rusty coat, His bright paternal…
Elterwater Rain
When I came to write of it there was no rain, just the last of its ectoplasm shivering in…
Street-Combing
for O Sun’s setting behind us at 5 pm; a turquoise stripe below a rain front strokes in sudden…
Enlightenment
The knock on the door was rapid, peremptory. Before I could answer, it opened and a tanned, silver-haired man…
Digestible Opera
The success of the Glyndebourne model, eighty years old this season, says something revealing about opera and the British…
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