contents
september 2021 • issue 500
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 | september 2021 2
diary 1 John Banville
literary lives 6 Claudia FitzHerbert
The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens & the World Robert Douglas-Fairhurst 7 Allan Massie
The Sins of G K Chesterton Richard Ingrams 9 Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
The Reason for the Darkness of the Night: Edgar Allan Poe & the Forging of American Science John Tresch 10 Andrew Hussey
Louis-Ferdinand Céline: Journeys to the Extreme Damian Catani
corridors of power 12 Michael White
The Prime Ministers We Never Had: Success & Failure from Butler to Corbyn Steve Richards 13 Robin Oakley
Lobby Life: Inside Westminster’s Secret Society Carole Walker 15 Alan Taylor
Break-Up: How Alex Salmond & Nicola Sturgeon Went to War David Clegg & Kieran Andrews
biography 16 Sarah Watling
The Radical Potter: Josiah Wedgwood & the Transformation of Britain Tristram Hunt 18 Norma Clarke
All In: An Autobiography Billie Jean King 19 Gavin Plumley
Mozart in Motion: His Work & His World in Pieces Patrick Mackie
who do you think you are? 20 Richard V Reeves
Generations: Does When You’re Born Shape Who You Are? Bobby Duffy 21 Darrin M McMahon
The Status Game: On Social Position & How We Use It Will Storr
