Simon Heffer
Ignore the Girls, Look at the Gables
The Buildings of England: Essex
By James Bettley and Nikolaus Pevsner
Yale University Press 939pp £29.95
The volume of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England series that covers Essex has long been one of the more inadequate titles in the series. Though famed for its atrociousness, Essex actually has more listed buildings than any but six other counties. Once one gets away from the hideous dormitory towns, and especially from the sprawl along the north bank of the Thames estuary, the wealth of architectural heritage should be plain to all but the most ignorant, or bigoted, observer.
When Pevsner wrote his original volume in 1954 Essex was notably rich in two sorts of building: medieval parish churches and timber-framed houses from the late medieval period. In this magnificent, and long overdue, revision of that volume (itself revised in a somewhat pawky way by Enid Radcliffe in 1965),
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
Twitter Feed
Under its longest-serving editor, Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair was that rare thing – a New York society magazine that published serious journalism.
@PeterPeteryork looks at what Carter got right.
Peter York - Deluxe Editions
Peter York: Deluxe Editions - When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter
literaryreview.co.uk
Henry James returned to America in 1904 with three objectives: to see his brother William, to deliver a series of lectures on Balzac, and to gather material for a pair of books about modern America.
Peter Rose follows James out west.
Peter Rose - The Restless Analyst
Peter Rose: The Restless Analyst - Henry James Comes Home: Rediscovering America in the Gilded Age by Peter Brooks...
literaryreview.co.uk
Vladimir Putin served his apprenticeship in the KGB toward the end of the Cold War, a period during which Western societies were infiltrated by so-called 'illegals'.
Piers Brendon examines how the culture of Soviet spycraft shaped his thinking.
Piers Brendon - Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll
Piers Brendon: Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll - The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West by Shaun Walker
literaryreview.co.uk