17 NOVEMBER 2001, page 50

Fresh Air In The Hothouse

Jane Ridley INVENTING THE VICTORIANS by Matthew Sweet Faber, £16.99, pp. 264, ISBN 0571206581 H ow prudish were the Victorians? Did they really cloak the legs of their pianos......

A Choice Of First Novels

Jack Wakefield h e Little Green Man by Simon Armitage (Viking, £12.99, pp. 256, ISBN 0670894427). Simon Armitage is a poet who, once upon a time, said that he would never write......