contents
august 2021 • issue 499
Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editors Frank Brinkley • David Gelber Contributing Editors Jonathan Beckman Michael Burleigh • Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Editorial & Marketing Assistant Michael Delgado Marketing Manager 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 letters@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 Print by: CPUK Print Publishing Ltd, www.cp-uk.co.uk 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 | august 2021 2
diary 1 Frances Wilson
art 6 Charles Darwent
The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Art & Hitler’s First Mass-Murder Programme Charlie English 8 Norma Clarke
This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life & Intimacy in the Early Twentieth Century Rebecca Birrell 9 Georgina Adam
Lost Art: The Art Loss Register Casebook Anja Shortland 10 Adrian Tinniswood
The World According to Colour: A Cultural History James Fox
history 12 Anna Keay
The Making of Oliver Cromwell Ronald Hutton 14 Bijan Omrani
History of the Caucasus: Volume One – At the Crossroads of Empires Christoph Baumer 15 Mathew Lyons
Antwerp: The Glory Years Michael Pye 17 Mary Kenny
The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge, & the Murders That Stunned an Empire Julie Kavanagh 18 Luke Daly-Groves
Checkmate in Berlin: The Cold War Showdown That Shaped the Modern World Giles Milton 19 Richard Vinen
War in the Mountains: Peasant Society & Counterinsurgency in Algeria, 1918–1958 Neil MacMaster
grand designs 20 Peter Davidson
Raised from the Ruins: Monastic Houses after the Dissolution Jane Whitaker 22 Jane Ridley
Hidden Heritage: Rediscovering Britain’s Lost Love of the Orient Fatima Manji
literary lives 23 Alberto Manguel
Pessoa: An Experimental Life Richard Zenith 25 Sarah Dunant
The Bookseller of Florence: Vespasiano da Bisticci & the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance Ross King