contents
march 2019 • issue 473
Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editors Frank Brinkley • David Gelber Contributing Editors Jonathan Beckman Michael Burleigh • Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack General Assistant Michael Delgado Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Founding Editor Dr Anne Smith Cover Illustration Chris Riddell
The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Fax: 020 7734 1844 • ISSN 0144 4360 © All subscription enquiries and changes of address to: Literary Review Subscriptions, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH • Tel: +44 (0) 1778 395 165 All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Printed in the United Kingdom by: Henry Ling Ltd, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester DT1 1HD • Tel: 01305 251 066 Distributed to newsagents worldwide by: Seymour Distribution Ltd • Tel: 0207 429 4000 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Subscriptions: subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk Editorial: editorial@literaryreview.co.uk www.literaryreview.co.uk • @lit_review Designed by Cog Design Literary Review is set in Adobe Caslon and Janet. The latter is a digitisation of an engraved typeface designed by the artist and typographer Reynolds Stone, and named after his wife.
Literary Review | march 2019 2
diary 1 D J Taylor
thinkers 6 Dmitri Levitin
Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, & the Quest for Nature’s ‘Secret Fire’ William R Newman 8 Donald Rayfield
Catherine & Diderot: The Empress, the Philosopher, & the Fate of the Enlightenment Robert Zaretsky 10 Paul Cartledge
Socrates in Love: The Making of a Philosopher Armand D’Angour
wives of windsor 12 David Gelber
The Quest for Queen Mary James Pope-Hennessy • Queen Mary: The Official Biography James Pope-Hennessy 14 Stephen Bates
Untitled: The Real Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor Anna Pasternak
foreign parts 16 Sean McMeekin
Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation Roderick Beaton 18 Robert Irwin
Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes & Empires Tim Mackintosh-Smith 19 Timothy Brook
Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago Philip Bowring 20 Jonathan Keates
Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe’s Lost Country Simon Winder
art & architecture 22 Christopher Turner
Walter Gropius: Visionary Founder of the Bauhaus Fiona MacCarthy • Bauhaus Goes West: Modern Art & Design in Britain & America Alan Powers 24 James Hamilton
Thomas Gainsborough: The Portraits, Fancy Pictures & Copies after Old Masters Hugh Belsey 26 Michael Prodger
Restoration: The Fall of Napoleon in the Course of European Art, 1812–1820 Thomas Crow
