Arriving as an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1961, Terry Eagleton was both overawed and underwhelmed by his supervisor, a man he calls Greenway in his memoir. ‘Greenway was the first truly civilised man I had ever encountered,’ Eagleton recalls. ‘He knew all about cheeses, wisteria, Rubens’s... read more

In the autumn of 1988, the Independent magazine sent me to Estonia to report on the Kremlin’s waning power in the Soviet Baltic. Alexander Chancellor, the editor, sensed that the USSR was in trouble: Estonia was agitating for independence; Poland, Hungary and other Eastern bloc... read more

When I became a doctor in the late 1960s, patients admitted with a stroke were nursed out of sight in quiet side cubicles, removed from the bustle of the open wards. On bedside visits we encouraged them to move their lifeless limbs, to speak and to work hard with the therapists. When they despaired, we offered hope, telling... read more

We know so little about Emily Brontë. There are just a few snapshots, like the vivid recollection of her sister Charlotte’s great friend Ellen Nussey: 'Her extreme reserve seemed impenetrable, yet she was intensely loveable … one of her rare expressive looks was something to remember through life, there was such a depth of soul and feeling... read more

The day after nineteen-year-old Betty Bulwer-Lytton, daughter of the Earl of Lytton, accepted a proposal of marriage from the rising Conservative politician Gerald Balfour, she received a different kind of proposal, a letter from a woman she barely knew, proposing ‘an intimate woman friendship’. Lady Frances... read more

In this engaging and well-researched book, Ollie Randall sets out to show how cricket and literature worked in a symbiotic relationship for several groups of writers from the 1880s until the early 1960s. Lasting friendships were made and careers were helped along in the course of matches... read more