These days, we associate autograph books with celebrities. But they originated in 16th-century Germany, where university students used to collect signatures from their classmates, and functioned as an

The Royal Institute of Philosophy at 100

PROUST’S FAMOUS NOVEL IS CALLED IN SEARCH of Lost Time, and isn’t that the key to why we love history? It’s the urge to recover the lost past. Can we get beyond the mysterious veil to real events and

Former jockey William Morgan on his curiosity to document the histories of Britain’s bygone racecourses

Composite figment of imaginations The writer credited with composing the Iliad and the Odyssey, and often regarded as one of the most important authors of all time, is to my mind the most overrated hi

I’M up at my parents’ old house, surrounded by boxes of books. My mum was a voracious reader. You only had to see all the bookcases in her home to realise that. Many books were bought for her as gifts