Brian Murray

Michael Slater’s new biography, Charles Dickens, is subtitled A Life Defined by Writing. It’s a bit clumsy, perhaps, but certainly apt. With The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens became, at 24, an international star. Suddenly he was lauded and adored and in constant demand… . Continue Reading »

The writer whose depiction of poverty and suffering shaped the moral imagination of his countrymen practiced what he preached. Continue Reading »

Tomorrow, October 12, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged . It was a huge, hotly debated bestseller in its day, and its sales have held steady ever since. Its author, certainly, retains a certain mystique as the exacting thinker still revered by . . . . Continue Reading »

In the elementary schools of the American Midwest, Abraham Lincoln has always enjoyed a good press. Schoolchildren in northern Indiana, I can attest, marked Lincoln’s birthday by drawing crayon portraits of the president while listening to inspirational stories about his life. In middle school . . . . Continue Reading »

The Anti-Egotist:Kingley Amis, Man of Letters. By Paul Fussell Oxford University Press, 206 pages, $23 Kingsley Amis is hard to beat at darts. His 1991 Memoirs, for example, showed a marked fondness for the pointed remark-and a rare skill at hitting the bullseye. Amis’ Memoirs targeted many of . . . . Continue Reading »