Christopher Woodward
Barrow Boys
Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain
By Rosemary Sweet
Hambledon 473pp £25 order from our bookshop
THERE’S A FASCINATION that is frantic / In a ruin that’s romantic’, went a Thirties song. There is something both fascinating and romantic in the lives of the lonely, eccentric scholars who during the eighteenth century created a taste for the remains of Britain’s past. In an age of turnpikes and steam, antiquaries explored abbeys which had become cowsheds, manuscripts which had been rolled up for centuries, and Roman roads which had deteriorated to faint tracks in the cornfields.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'To me, Elmore Leonard is as comforting in extremity as Pym, and as safe, in the last resort, as Wodehouse. The guys with the best lines are going to come out the other side; the dumb fucks are going to get it in the head or chest.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-spoonful-of-elmore
'As we read, we know that in a short time the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and colour television will sweep that age over the balustrade and into the sea, but for now everyone is happy.'
Simon Baker is charmed by Graham Swift's new novel, 'Here We Are'.
http://ow.ly/uDL050ylh80
'As science moves forward ... are we entering an era where sex is for leisure and IVF is for creating the perfect child?'
@MGilmore121 takes a look at the future of IVF in her review of @RobertKlitzman's 'Designing Babies'.
http://ow.ly/xuJY50ybNJa