30 DECEMBER 2000, page 40

High Life

Defying the gods Taki Rougemont hen on a dark and stormy night on the banks of Lake Geneva the great 18- year-old Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, she......

No Life

No trouble Jeremy Clarke D ick?' I said to the sister on duty, `Dick Brooking?' She looked doubtful. 'Lit- tle chap,' I said. 'Tiny.' Dick's mother died giving birth to him in a......