Christopher Lee
Ships Hoping to Pass in the Night
The Real Cruel Sea: The Merchant Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943
By Richard Woodman
John Murray 800pp £30
DURING THE SECOND World War some 30,000 British merchant seamen died in the Battle of the Atlantic - most of them before the end of 1943. Even that figure may be on the low side: the Registrar-General of British Shipping did not know how many sailors had died ashore of their wounds.
The shipping companies were not much help. When a merchant ship was torpedoed, the lucky survivors took to the lifeboats and rah. The minute they dld so, most of them had their wages stopped: in the view of the majority of shipping lines, sailors in cork life belts were no
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
It wasn’t until 1825 that Pepys’s diary became available for the first time. How it was eventually decrypted and published is a story of subterfuge and duplicity.
Kate Loveman tells the tale.
Kate Loveman - Publishing Pepys
Kate Loveman: Publishing Pepys
literaryreview.co.uk
Arthur Christopher Benson was a pillar of the Edwardian establishment. He was supremely well connected. As his newly published diaries reveal, he was also riotously indiscreet.
Piers Brendon compares Benson’s journals to others from the 20th century.
Piers Brendon - Land of Dopes & Tories
Piers Brendon: Land of Dopes & Tories - The Benson Diaries: Selections from the Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson by Eamon Duffy & Ronald Hyam (edd)
literaryreview.co.uk
Of the siblings Gwen and Augustus John, it is Augustus who has commanded most attention from collectors and connoisseurs.
Was he really the finer artist, asks Tanya Harrod, or is it time Gwen emerged from her brother’s shadow?
Tanya Harrod - Cut from the Same Canvas
Tanya Harrod: Cut from the Same Canvas - Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
literaryreview.co.uk