Literature

Hack and Hero

Leslie McFarlane: the career of a prolific and successful hack writer

Warrior Artist

Vincent Van Gogh travelled a rough road, often of his own making. His chief artistic master, Jean-François Millet, said that art was a battle, and…

World Literature

The Resident and the Stranger

Tolstoy oscillated between the profligate life and stable family life. Tolstoy the Resident wanted to live on his estate, write great works of art and…

World History

Bad Blood

The ‘blood libel’, the notion that Jews were kidnapping and murdering Christian children for ritual purposes, was not created by poor and ignorant people but…

World Literature

Struggling for Sanctity

A biographer of Ernest Hemingway has argued that his life can be read in terms of a quest for sainthood, a struggle to be not…

World Politics

Becoming a Conservative … and After

Political journeys are not always one-directional. For some people neither the right nor the liberal left is an entirely satisfying place and it becomes necessary,…

World Art / Culture

Nobody’s Perfect

The Stoic philosopher Seneca offered useful advice on self-mastery, how to deal with the passage of time and the vanity of acquisitiveness. If he did…