J W M Thompson
What the Sovereign Saw
It is six years since A N Wilson’s brilliant study of The Victorians appeared, soon followed by After the Victorians. Both books received high praise, and this third volume, bringing the story up to date, has been keenly awaited. Now that the trilogy is complete, it can be said with satisfaction that the verve, erudition and wit that distinguished the earlier books are undimmed in this latest work.
It is bulky (almost 500 pages) because the subject is vast – nothing less than the emergence of modern Britain from the wrecked country left behind by the Second World War. That this total transformation, reaching down to the smallest details of
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
'Things began to go wrong between Mr and Mrs Eliot almost immediately. Ostensibly the problem was Vivien’s mysteriously fluctuating health. It would be easy to reduce the Eliot marriage simply to a catalogue of Viv’s medical crises.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/marriage-made-in-hell
'The trouble seems to be that we are not asked to read this author, reading being a thing of the past. We are asked to decode him.'
From the archive, Derek Mahon peruses the early short fiction of Thomas Pynchon.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/rock-n-roll-is-here-to-stay
'There are at least two dozen members of the House of Commons today whose names I cannot read without laughing because I know what poseurs and place-seekers they are.'
From the archive, Christopher Hitchens on the Oxford Union.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/mother-of-unions