Literature

The dictionary of the demagogues

In the dictionary of the demagogues there is only a single word: obey

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Flirting with damnation

As Greene explained to his wife when their marriage ended, what made him a bad husband was precisely what made him a good writer

Books
The enduring appeal of Jeeves and Wooster

Ben Schott’s new novel is hugely welcome, but thankfully it will never threaten to obscure the genius of the canon

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In-line, online, and where to draw the line

Notes on Colombo’s books and bookmen in the time of Covid-19

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We have much to learn from nineteenth-century Russia

Since the Cold War we have, to our detriment, become increasingly blinded to the wisdom of the Old Russia

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Is Saul Bellow Martin Amis’s true father?

Reviews of Martin Amis’s new book prove that the best questions are the ones that no one asks

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No prefix required: how gay writers came of age

Douglas Murray refuses to mourn the death of the gay novel — a genre that was once ghettoised has joined the mainstream

Features
Why Sherlock Holmes remains the greatest detective

There is no need to make Sherlock Holmes more likeable, part of his brilliance is in his ambiguity

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Shakespearean lore and order

A new anthology displays Shakespeare’s engagement with the sonnet form across his career, but at a high cost

Books
Evelyn Waugh was right: British politics went wrong in the 1920s

Why do Waugh’s political works remain either caricatured or ignored?

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