Peter Stansky

"‘It is a truth universally admitted that we all speak badly of others, even of those of whom we may in fact be quite fond.’ You have to warm to a historian who is prepared to embed such a sentiment in the midst of a learned treatise about the ."

"There are engagingly troublesome undercurrents to much of Stansky’s writing. Again and again he portrays formidably endowed characters struggling to encapsulate and communicate what they believed to be the feelings of those less privileged than themselves."