A L Rowse
Irresistibly Readable
Trevor-Roper is an historical essayist rather than a constructive historian like Trevelyan, creatively building book upon book with big significant subjects, and with the proper organic structure a book should have. Nearly all these essays have been published before; but I am grateful to have them conveniently gathered together.
The essay on Robert Burton is the best thing ever written about him; it makes good sense of the amorphous mass of The Anatomy of Melancholy, a difficult job brilliantly executed. Not everybody finds that classic work readable: Trevor-Roper makes it sound quite sympathetic, and even that crusty old don,
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From the archive: Kenneth Rose on the life of Princess Alice of Battenberg
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-trumped-them-all
'The trick of a successful mercenary ... was somehow to get on almost as well with your enemies as your allies, since those two positions could be reversed at dizzying speed.'
Sarah Dunant on the life of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/scholar-in-arms
'McDormand has come closer to Lady Macbeth in some of her previous grimly comic performances ... Here she can convey only the banality of evil, as when she fussily curtails the banquet after Macbeth’s hallucination.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/come-thick-night