Miranda Seymour

"Arthur Benson, one of the coterie of clever, literary-minded younger men whose company the ageing novelist relished, found himself incapable of sharing the enthusiasm of and for ."

"Today, the most famous scene from Mary's life and, perhaps, in is the stormy summer night at the on when Byron, his handsome young doctor , the Shelleys and , who was carrying Byron's child, decided to write for fun. This was the night on which Frankenstein, that best known of all Romantic works, was born. Its author was not yet nineteen. Frankenstein has become part of our lives."

"Usually dismissive of other female writers, Riding had praised Stein in the final chapter of A Survey of Modernist Poetry for using a language of divine ordinariness. It was 's idea that they should invite Miss Stein to publish something with the ."

"In 1928 Edmund Blunden's ' was widely praised for its lyrical, approach. Sassoon's ', also published in 1928, set the scene for the contrast between an idyllic, pre-war world and the savagery of war explored in his ."

"Eccentricity has not always been encouraged by the prim editors of . Invited to list his recreations, omitted motorbikes and wrote instead: , and tennis. Identifying himself as of provided a greater source of satisfaction."

"The , constructed from rosy bricks and crowned with curved stone s, stands among the meadows flanking the , in the middle of England, a hundred s to the north of London. Starting life as a modest built in the , it was enlarged twice. An ambitious owner redesigned it in the , to incorporate a large carved staircase and a grand reception room on an upper floor. In the 1820s, the House gained a courtyard, a library and a lake. The estate, easily encompassed by an hour's brisk walk, is surprisingly varied in its landscape, incorporating traces of an and a trading post."