Donald Sassoon
Tales of the City
Streetlife: The Untold History of Europe’s Twentieth Century
By Leif Jerram
Oxford University Press 477pp £18.99 order from our bookshop
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young academic in possession of a PhD must be in want of a journal where at least a chapter might be published. But the object investigated is usually so obscure that a bit of sexing up is perfectly understandable. Hence opening lines such as: ‘Curiously enough no one has so far examined the role played by the partially disabled Mr L John Silver in the bureaucratic reorganisation of the Royal Navy in the first half of the eighteenth century – a role which was of some significance to both treasure seekers and rum distillers.’ And it just so happens that a cache of Mr Silver’s letters, previously overlooked by historians, has been recently found in the archives. The rest, literally, is history.
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
'When the language starts functioning as a character in fiction, when it is there drawing attention to itself ... It’s not anything that anybody really takes seriously.'
Our interview with Anthony Burgess from 1983.
http://ow.ly/5u0y50yrjoO
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire