Tolkien, and the chronicles of modern despair

Tolkien’s intention, with The Lord of the Rings, was to create a mythology centred largely around Britain and, from his perspective as a wealthy, white man in the mid 20th Century, British values. Whi

Julian Fellowes and his cast look back on 15 years of triumph and tragedy, above and below stairs, as Downton Abbey returns for its last hurrah

Muriel Spark’s irrepressible creative drive

What supernatural folklore reveals about human nature

How Old Norse mythology endured in the Christian era

The Americans are even more prone than the British to the biographical doorstopper as a way in which to honour the lives, minute by minute, of their famous dead. Walter Isaacson and Jon Meacham are am