20 NOVEMBER 1999, page 53

A Lover Of Limelight And Secrecy

Alan Ross LAURIE LEE: THE WELL-LOVED STRANGER by Valerie Grove Viking, £20, pp. 552 V alerie Grove's The Well-Loved Stranger is the second book about Laurie Lee to be published......

A Bloody, Awful Year

Peter Vansittart NERO'S HEIRS by Allan Massie Sceptre, £16.99, pp. 248 I n his poem 'Nero's Term' Constantine Cavafy envisages Nero warned by Delphi to fear 'seventy-three......