contents may 2021 • issue 496
Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editors Frank Brinkley • David Gelber Contributing Editors Jonathan Beckman Michael Burleigh • Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Editorial & Marketing Assistant Michael Delgado Marketing Manager Constance Watson Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Founding Editor Dr Anne Smith Cover Illustration Chris Riddell
The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • ISSN 0144 4360 Tel: 020 7437 9392 • editorial@literaryreview.co.uk letters@literaryreview.co.uk All subscription enquiries and changes of address to: Literary Review Subscriptions, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH • Tel: +44 (0) 1778 395 165 subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 terry@literaryreview.co.uk • david.sturge@btopenworld.com Print by: CPUK Print Publishing Ltd, www.cp-uk.co.uk Distributed to newsagents worldwide by: Seymour Distribution Ltd • Tel: 020 7429 4000 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Designed by Cog Design Literary Review is set in Adobe Caslon and Janet. The latter is a digitisation of an engraved typeface designed by the artist and typographer Reynolds Stone, and named after his wife.
Literary Review | may 2021 2
diary 1 Peter Singer art 6 Dmitri Levitin
Visions of Heaven: Dante & the Art of Divine Light Martin Kemp 8 Tanya Harrod
Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life Eleanor Clayton 10 Dominic Green
John Craxton: A Life of Gifts Ian Collins 12 Laura Freeman
The Art Museum in Modern Times Charles Saumarez Smith death & taxes 13 Jonathan Sumption
Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe Niall Ferguson 14 Frances Cairncross
Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies & Wisdom through the Ages Michael Keen & Joel Slemrod • The Dreadful Monster and Its Poor Relations: Taxing, Spending & the United Kingdom, 1707–2021 Julian Hoppit biography 16 Caroline Moorehead
Napoleon: A Life in Gardens & Shadows Ruth Scurr 17 Bijan Omrani
Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City Edmund Richardson 19 Miranda Seymour
The Duchess Countess: The Woman Who Scandalised a Nation Catherine Ostler 20 Adrian Tinniswood
Inheritance: The Lost History of Mary Davies Leo Hollis 21 Barnaby Crowcroft
Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said Timothy Brennan history 23 Andrew Gailey
The Partition: Ireland Divided, 1885–1925 Charles Townshend 26 George Prochnik
German Jerusalem: The Remarkable Life of a German-Jewish Neighbourhood in the Holy City Thomas Sparr 28 Philip Parker
The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England Marc Morris
