contents
may 2019 • issue 475
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 Marketing Jared Spears • Constance Watson 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 • ISSN 0144 4360 Tel: 020 7437 9392 • editorial@literaryreview.co.uk 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 subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 terry@literaryreview.co.uk • david.sturge@btopenworld.com 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: 020 7429 4000 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 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 | may 2019 2
diary 1 Toby Faber
literary lives 6 Sophie Duncan
This Is Shakespeare Emma Smith • What Blest Genius? The Jubilee That Made Shakespeare Andrew McConnell Stott 8 Miranda Seymour
L.E.L.: The Lost Life & Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated ‘Female Byron’ Lucasta Miller 9 Richard Greene
Our Man Down in Havana: The Story Behind Graham Greene’s Cold War Spy Novel Christopher Hull 10 Cosmo Landesman
White Bret Easton Ellis
history 12 John Gray
Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis & Change Jared Diamond 13 Anthony Pagden
Emperor: A New Life of Charles V Geoffrey Parker 15 Lucy Moore
She-Merchants, Buccaneers & Gentlewomen: British Women in India Katie Hickman
oppression 16 Peter Parker
Outrages: Sex, Censorship & the Criminalisation of Love Naomi Wolf 17 Jay Parini
Writers Under Surveillance: The FBI Files JPat Brown, B C D Lipton & Michael Morisy (edd)
natural worlds 19 Jonathan Meades
Underland: A Deep Time Journey Robert Macfarlane 20 Tim Richardson
The Hidden Horticulturists: The Untold Story of the Men Who Shaped Britain’s Gardens Fiona Davison 22 Tom Fort
The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology Mark Boyle
