Hitler: bohemian, bore and monster
March 5, 2020
Hitler: Downfall 1939-45 By Volker Ullrich Bodley Head, 838pp, £30/$39.95 Putting the war dates in the title is significant. Volker Ullrich, in this second...
Allan Massie
The man who paved the way for modern royalty
December 19, 2019
Prince Albert By AN Wilson Atlantic, 430pp, £30/$35 Publishers love subtitles as a means of catching prospective buyers. So AN Wilson’s delightful biography of...
The odd couple who kept up Britain’s spirits
November 14, 2019
Attlee and Churchill By Leo McKinstry Atlantic, 737pp, £25/$28 Talk about the descent from the sublime to the ridiculous. From Attlee and Churchill to...
Love and cowardice in France’s ‘Dark Years’
October 24, 2019
Madeleine By Euan Cameron Maclehose, 330pp, £17/$22 Euan Cameron was my first publisher and editor more than 40 years ago and has been one...
Could Catholicism have made Hemingway a great novelist?
August 8, 2019
Ernest Hemingway was reared by church-going parents as a Congregationalist. His first son was christened in the Church of England. Then soon after his...
Graham Greene is unfashionable, but there will surely be a revival
June 27, 2019
In 1960 Evelyn Waugh declined a request to review Graham Greene’s new novel A Burnt-Out Case. They were friends but the book saddened him....
The Scottish missionary who was transported to Auschwitz
June 6, 2019
Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage By Mary Miller Birlinn, 240pp, £14.99/$20 We know, hear, think and speak a lot about the...
A humanising tale of a king’s five daughters
April 25, 2019
Daughters of Chivalry: The Forgotten Children of Edward I By Kelsey Wilson-Lee, Picador, 346pp, £20/$25 To forget something you have to know it first....
A theological thriller that has stood the test of time
March 21, 2019
Orwell thought that the novel was a Protestant art form. This may seem silly, especially when you consider the number of Catholic novelists, and...
A portrait of Western decadence that could do with more jokes
February 21, 2019
The Terror of Existence By Theodore Dalrymple and Kenneth Francis, New English Review Press, 157pp, £15.99/$19.99 It may be assumed that most readers of...
Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers: an attempted masterpiece that didn’t quite work
January 24, 2019
Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers was a great baggy monster of a novel which should perhaps have won the Booker Prize in 1980, but was...
Why Kaiser Wilhelm was never put on trial
January 24, 2019
The Trial of the Kaiser By William Schabas OUP, 412pp, £25/$35 “We’re going to hang Jeff Davis from a sour-apple tree,” sang Yankee soldiers....
Hitler: bohemian, bore and monster
March 5, 2020
Hitler: Downfall 1939-45 By Volker Ullrich Bodley Head, 838pp, £30/$39.95 Putting the war dates in the title is significant. Volker Ullrich, in this second...
The man who paved the way for modern royalty
December 19, 2019
Prince Albert By AN Wilson Atlantic, 430pp, £30/$35 Publishers love subtitles as a means of catching prospective buyers. So AN Wilson’s delightful biography of...
The odd couple who kept up Britain’s spirits
November 14, 2019
Attlee and Churchill By Leo McKinstry Atlantic, 737pp, £25/$28 Talk about the descent from the sublime to the ridiculous. From Attlee and Churchill to...
Love and cowardice in France’s ‘Dark Years’
October 24, 2019
Madeleine By Euan Cameron Maclehose, 330pp, £17/$22 Euan Cameron was my first publisher and editor more than 40 years ago and has been one...
Could Catholicism have made Hemingway a great novelist?
August 8, 2019
Ernest Hemingway was reared by church-going parents as a Congregationalist. His first son was christened in the Church of England. Then soon after his...
Graham Greene is unfashionable, but there will surely be a revival
June 27, 2019
In 1960 Evelyn Waugh declined a request to review Graham Greene’s new novel A Burnt-Out Case. They were friends but the book saddened him....
The Scottish missionary who was transported to Auschwitz
June 6, 2019
Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage By Mary Miller Birlinn, 240pp, £14.99/$20 We know, hear, think and speak a lot about the...
A humanising tale of a king’s five daughters
April 25, 2019
Daughters of Chivalry: The Forgotten Children of Edward I By Kelsey Wilson-Lee, Picador, 346pp, £20/$25 To forget something you have to know it first....
A theological thriller that has stood the test of time
March 21, 2019
Orwell thought that the novel was a Protestant art form. This may seem silly, especially when you consider the number of Catholic novelists, and...
A portrait of Western decadence that could do with more jokes
February 21, 2019
The Terror of Existence By Theodore Dalrymple and Kenneth Francis, New English Review Press, 157pp, £15.99/$19.99 It may be assumed that most readers of...
Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers: an attempted masterpiece that didn’t quite work
January 24, 2019
Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers was a great baggy monster of a novel which should perhaps have won the Booker Prize in 1980, but was...
Why Kaiser Wilhelm was never put on trial
January 24, 2019
The Trial of the Kaiser By William Schabas OUP, 412pp, £25/$35 “We’re going to hang Jeff Davis from a sour-apple tree,” sang Yankee soldiers....
