Autograph of the Week

Napoleon was only 24 at the Siege of Toulon in 1793. Robespierre sent his younger brother Augustin to find out why things weren't going very well there. Augusin's report was mostly damning - he didn't have a very high opinion of any of the leaders, and declared that the only one who seemed at all competent was a young artillery captain,...

Some people are more opinionated than others. And when it comes to Margot Asquith, well . . . nobody did it better. Here she is giving Lord Knutsford her opinion on the statue of Edith Cavell now by the National Portrait Gallery (she didn't like it); the statue of Florence Nightingale (she liked it even less); and the difference between Tories...

This is signed "Prince de la Moskowa". but it's not the heroic Marshal Ney. It's his son, Napoleon-Joseph Ney (many of Napoleon's marshals named their sons after the emperor - there must have been a lot of young Napoleons in France at one point).But why is it so interesting? Because he was a believer in homeopathy. And he was able...

In the first part of the 19th century, George Crabbe was an admired poet. Have you read any of his work? Not very many people have today.But if I mention that he was happy to return to his home town of Aldeburgh (using the variant spelling Aldborough) it might spark some interest. Indeed, Aldeburgh's other famous resident, Benjamin Britten, used...

Sometimes a letter catches your eye because of one phrase, and then you realise that the writer had something interesting to say. This is one of those letters, and the phrase is "My final advice is not to begin thinking about buildings - that is the last step. Think first about people and purposes." Lewis Mumford wrote this letter to...