Digressions

Fledgling joys: a week in the country

The unlooked-for delights and wisdoms of bird-watching in the Normandy bocage

Jun 28 •

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 •

First sight: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

What reviewers made of this classic novel on publication in May 1925

May 14 •

The revolutionary life of Victoria Claflin Woodhull, the first woman to run for the US presidency

The nineteenth-century campaign for social equality, sexual revolution and spiritualism

Apr 30 •

The memory palace of Solomon Shereshevsky

The man behind Alexander Luria's classic study The Mind of a Mnemonist

Apr 23 •

First sight: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

What reviewers made of this classic novel on publication in 1926

Apr 16 •

The last and outmost isle

A brief history of the abandoned Scottish islands of St Kilda

Mar 28 •

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 •

A weekend miscellany

A more-or-less haphazard collation of anecdotes and curios, poetry and prose

Mar 7 •

The library of lost conversation

A piece I wrote in 2017 while clearing my parents' house

Jan 16 •

The Mayerling Incident: scandal, suicide, and the Bavarian kink

A tragedy that might have changed the course of history

Nov 15, 2024 •

The unveiling of the Menin Gate

Remembering the missing after the war to end all wars

Nov 10, 2024 •

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