18 APRIL 1992, page 29

Sometimes I Sits And Thinks . . .

Nigel Spivey DIDEROT: A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY by P.N. Furbank Secker & Warburg, £25, pp. 524 D iderot saw himself as a second Socrates. It is a sign of failed aspirations that,......

A Novel In Three Quatrains

Once she was thin, and given to hysterics. She missed her meals and claimed to have TB, But rallied through a taste for aging clerics; Sat at some righteous feet; scraped a......

Thoughts That Do Often Lie Too Deep For Tears

Francis King THE MOMENT UNDER THE MOMENT by Russell Hoban Cape, £14.99, pp. 260 B y his own admission in his foreword to this collection of stories, essays, sketches and a......