In July, Sam Freedman despaired at the state of Britain and America; Edward Mendelson pondered The Waves of Woolf; Emma Greensmith examined Homer’s evolution; Richard Norton-Taylor took on the deep state; and Alicia Rix followed Henry James back to America. Here are some highlights from the month:
Blurred lines: What makes a novel of ideas?
Breaking The Waves: How Virginia Woolf righted ‘one chapter gone wrong’
Through bushes and briars: Ancient rural skills in a modern world
The skull beneath the skin: A strident call for the decolonization of national collections
A stranger in his own land: Henry James’s return to the United States
Byron among the women: The poet’s exasperation with his provincial upbringing
Light of the Right: A Cultural Conservative who paved the way for Ronald Reagan