Literature

A study of the hostile legends, immortalized in Shakespeare’s tragic drama, that have gathered around the real historical figure of Macbeth.

Both before and after the fall of the Republic, Roman satirists give us an extraordinarily vivid picture of the society in which they lived, with its materialism, its opportunism, its unceasing pursuit of power and wealth.

The poet was appointed on July 16th, 1913.

Crispin Andrews finds echoes of one of Sherlock Holmes’ most celebrated mysteries in a tale of 18th-century France.

Though dull in places and difficult to translate, Hugh Thomas writes, Don Quixote’s refreshing realism once made Cervantes the most widely read foreign writer in England. But will his most famous work endure as literature?

J.J.N. McGurk describes how Gerald’s later years were filled with his excellent books on Wales and his unsuccessful struggle for a bishopric.

For a few years an impoverished barrister became one of the most effective orators and journalists of the French Revolution, writes John Hartcup.

Douglas Hilt profiles a statesman, jurist and man of letters who devoted his generous gifts to the service of Bourbon Spain.

Anthony Dent examines the lives of English foresters, parkers, warreners, and the preservation of deer and boar for hunting, all in the era of the Bard.

Joanna Richardson finds that Anatole France's politics, like his private life, remained unorthodox, but the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s changed his literary life.