11 DECEMBER 1993, page 43

Historical Fiction With A Twist

Roger Clarke THE GRISLY WIFE by Rodney Hall Faber, £14.99, pp. 261 P rovincial Australia; late 19th-century. A police sergeant calls at the house of Catherine Byrne during the......

Little Drama

A bonny night. I step outside and gaze, head back in autumn dark, up into space, where stars between the clouds burn with quiet praise, and think for whatever reason of your......

Singing Bird

Good God, poor Septimus, stop all this praise. You make me seem a vase in some museum. Goodbye the living poet, hello the mausoleum! I haven't written an unselfconscious phrase......

Change, Decay And Some Irritation

William Leith THE SPECTATOR ANNUAL edited by Dominic Lawson HarperCollins, £20, pp. 309 I t was the year when Brian Clough resigned; when Ian Hislop was asked to appear nude on......