Larry Ryan
Double Trouble
Times are good for Stephen Wyley. He’s a society portraitist in 1930s London, regarded by some as ‘the British Sargent’, with a marriage, children and an inheritance to fall back on. ‘The Life of Wyley’ is a friend’s arch description. Stephen recognises his membership of a fortunate interwar generation: born late enough to avoid the Great War and subsequently able to take up a place at Oxford left vacant by those called up. ‘Wyley had been lucky in most things, and had learned not to mind being resented for it.’
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
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire
‘"I feel", Lowell told Hardwick ... "as if I were pulled apart and thinning into mist, or rather being torn apart and still preferring that state to making a decision."'
Richard Davenport-Hines on the letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/yours-unfaithfully-2