The flyleaf to Angela Thirlwell’s book on the British artist Ford Madox Brown and the women in his life makes an odd claim. Madox Brown is described as “the finest but least understood of the artists connected to the Pre-Raphaelite movement”. Now, Madox Brown’s complex canvases can be elusive in their meaning, but few would suggest he’s the greatest of the Pre-Raphaelites,
Michael Arditti praises Just Kids by Patti Smith, a heartfelt biography about the singer's affair with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe
Some years ago, a literary hoaxer tricked The Times into announcing the discovery of a cache of love letters between E M Forster and Virginia Woolf.
Philip Womack enjoys Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth by Trevor Norton, a witty account of scientific researches
It is astonishing to think how many of the things that we take for granted today – anaesthetic, immunisation – are not only relatively recent
Melanie McGrath is intrigued by Siri Hustvedt's account of a mysterious ailment, The Shaking Woman or a History of My Nerves
On a fine May Minnesota day in 2006, the novelist Siri Hustvedt found herself at a crossroads. She was giving a speech at a memorial on a college campus in memory of her father, Lloyd, who had taught in
