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The critic cornered
The day the late John Carey went too far
Jan 21
•
Mathew Lyons
115
47
28
The real-life gangsters and gamblers behind Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls
America's storied underworld in the Roaring Twenties and after
Oct 10, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
21
8
9
What I read on my holidays. Sort of
A selection of books that travel and summer made possible
Aug 15, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
29
16
5
Nagasaki 1945
A dip into the family photo album
Aug 6, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
61
37
19
Fledgling joys: a week in the country
The unlooked-for delights and wisdoms of bird-watching in the Normandy bocage
Jun 28, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
30
7
8
History in plain sight: four Anglo-Saxon churches to visit
Remarkable survivals in Kent and Essex dating from as far back as the sixth century
May 23, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
67
37
19
First sight: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
What reviewers made of this classic novel on publication in May 1925
May 14, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
42
7
17
First sight: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
What reviewers made of this classic novel on publication in 1926
Apr 16, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
29
20
11
A thieves' lexicon for 18th-century London
A street-wise guide to low-life argot from the pages of the Old Bailey trial reports
Mar 21, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
54
25
10
A weekend miscellany
A more-or-less haphazard collation of anecdotes and curios, poetry and prose
Mar 7, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
29
6
14
The library of lost conversation
A piece I wrote in 2017 while clearing my parents' house
Jan 16, 2025
•
Mathew Lyons
46
16
12
News from the dead: an Oxford resurrection
The true story of a 17th-century miracle on the gallows
Nov 5, 2024
•
Mathew Lyons
46
13
7
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