Ever since Shakespeare labelled Richard, Duke of Gloucester, a ‘murderous Machiavel’, the word ‘Machiavellian’ in popular culture has meant being devious, cunning, scheming and quite prepared for the ...

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the loose group that came later to be labelled 'The Georgians' all knew each other: poets, painters, editors, critics (there seemed enviably little ...

Edward W Said, a scholar born in Palestine and educated in Egypt, is presently Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is the author of several books on contemporary ...

That title is misleading, as is the identical declaration of trade on the poet's tombstone. Larkin wrote, and wrote well, but he did not write for a living. Those of his generation (to my shock I wake ...

Ian McEwan’s shift, fully twenty years ago now, from the unique impassive weirdness of his first novels and story collections towards a sleek if never quite untroubling respectability won him legions ...