A modern moll flanders

“A deluge of printed matter pours over the world”, F. R. Leavis proclaimed in his doctoral thesis of 1924. An excess of low-quality verbiage, in the view of this young literary scholar, was doing harm

Gerald Howard’s The Insider is a crowded but colourful portrait of Malcolm Cowley, poet, editor and chronicler of the so-called Lost Generation – those American exemplars of literary modernism who, li

George Moore Confessions of a Young Man Edited by Matthew Creasy 272pp. Modern Humanities Research Association. Paperback, £18.99. Virginia Woolf judged that the Irish novelist George Moore (1852–1933

There was a night as a boy when I couldn’t sleep ahead of a football match, too wired by thoughts of the sporting heroics I might achieve—or fall short of—the next day. While tossing and turning in my

Gerri Kimber Katherine Mansfield A hidden life 304pp. Reaktion. £20. Whenever a new biography of a well-known literary figure is published, the reader always hopes that the author may have included so

ROSALIE’S heart was pounding. Tall and formidable in dark coat and breeches, Thomas Charrel stood in the chapel doorway, his eyes on her for what seemed an age. His expression was grim, his gaze as co