David Gilmour
Living the High Life
The Lost Imperialist: Lord Dufferin, Memory and Mythmaking in an Age of Celebrity
By Andrew Gailey
John Murray 454pp £30 order from our bookshop
The cult of political biography is gently withering with the decline in the number of its adherents. People still go out to buy the lives of prime ministers – especially if called Churchill, Thatcher or Lloyd George – but they are seldom interested in the tier below, the ‘nearly men’, politicians who may have accomplished great things without ever quite reaching Number Ten. Statesmen and diplomats, who a century ago would have merited a two-volume biography, might now not receive more than a hostile academic monograph about one controversial episode in their careers.
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
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency
'We have all twenty-nine of her Barsetshire novels, and whenever a certain longing reaches critical mass we read all twenty-nine again, straight through.'
Patricia T O'Conner on her love for Angela Thirkell. (£)
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad