24 AUGUST 1985, page 26

Getting To Know The Field Marshal

Brian Masters MONTY AT CLOSE QUARTERS edited by T. E. B. Howarth Secker, £10.95 T he biographer faces daily engulfment by the mass of material strewn over his desk. The......

Restoration But Little Comedy

Francis King STONE VIRGIN by Barry Unsworth Hamish Hamilton, £8.95 T hough tempting, it would a critical cliché, and also not wholly accurate, to say that this remarkable novel......

Edward Burra: The Paintings

Giles Auty EDWARD BURRA by Andrew Causey Phaidon, £60 F rom childhood I have vivid recollec- tions of a book of stories illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley. Whether this was a......