D J Taylor
London Calling
Three Brothers
By Peter Ackroyd
Chatto & Windus 246pp £14.99
Not long ago Prospect magazine asked me to write a profile of Peter Ackroyd. This was not at all an easy task. For a start, it meant reading, or rereading, several of the books in Ackroyd’s multitudinous output (the 32-volume list in the prelims of this latest one is woefully incomplete, by the way). Then it meant browsing through the equally large number of teasing interviews Ackroyd has given to newspapers over the past thirty years, in which hardly anything of a personal nature is ever let out beneath the arc light. Finally, at the instigation of the editor, who conceded that it would be like getting blood out of a stone, I had to ring up the subject himself. Ackroyd was polite but noncommittal. The piece duly appeared: comprehensive, (mostly) admiring and – to use that ancient Fleet Street cliché – ‘rather light on the quotes’.
And what bearing does any of this have on Ackroyd’s new novel – his 16th, I make it, and the first since 2008’s The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein? Well, rather a lot, as, remarkably for a writer who usually confines himself to the wilder margins of history and the reimagining
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
The era of dollar dominance might be coming to an end. But if not the dollar, which currency will be the backbone of the global economic system?
@HowardJDavies weighs up the alternatives.
Howard Davies - Greenbacks Down, First Editions Up
Howard Davies: Greenbacks Down, First Editions Up - Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent...
literaryreview.co.uk
Johannes Gutenberg cut corners at every turn when putting together his bible. How, then, did his creation achieve such renown?
@JosephHone_ investigates.
Joseph Hone - Start the Presses!
Joseph Hone: Start the Presses! - Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books by Eric Marshall White
literaryreview.co.uk
Convinced of her own brilliance, Gertrude Stein wished to be ‘as popular as Gilbert and Sullivan’ and laboured tirelessly to ensure that her celebrity would outlive her.
@sophieolive examines the real Stein.
Sophie Oliver - The Once & Future Genius
Sophie Oliver: The Once & Future Genius - Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife by Francesca Wade
literaryreview.co.uk