For People Who Devour Books

The Current Issue

October 2026

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‘This magazine is flush with tight, smart writing.’
Washington Post

Literary Review covers the most important and interesting books published each month, from history and biography to fiction and travel. The magazine was founded in 1979 and is based in central London.

October 2026, Issue 556 Nicholas Dames on British novels * Jonathan Boff on Napoleon’s marshals * John Adamson on the Glorious Revolution * Diane Purkiss on small dogs * Erik Linstrum on the history of confiscation * Ritchie Robertson on Thomas Mann * Peter Marshall on William Paget * Adam Sisman on Cold War spies * Josh Glancy on Roy Cohn * Ferdinand Mount on Anglo-German relations * Norma Clarke on Lavinia Fontana * Dmitri Levitin on collaborative authorship * Joseph Hone on bookselling * D J Taylor on John McGahern * Piers Brendon on America and the Middle East * Anthony Teasdale on Europe * Tim Richardson on William Morris * Fergus Butler-Gallie on wine * Ian Thomson on peasants * Joan Smith on pornography * Joanna Kavenna on doubles * Madeline Zehnder on little books * Maria Margaronis on Barbara Kingsolver * Paul Genders on Marlon James * and much, much more…

Nicholas Dames

A History of the Novel in Britain

By Philip Hensher

Along time ago, in the far-off 1990s, a mentor warned me that the subject I’d proposed to study, the Victorian novel, was fast approaching its expiration date. Soon enough, he said, its eye-straining bulk would set behind the horizon of cultural memory, following its 18th-century predecessors into antiquarian darkness. It was partly a numbers game, he explained: when the odometer clicked over and the 20th century squatted between the Victorians and us, they would become the-thing-before-the-thing-before, distant and inscrutable. Likewise, not so very long afterwards... read more

Jonathan Boff

Napoleon and his Marshals: Victory, Rivalry, Betrayal

By Andrew Roberts

The tale of the unknown Corsican soldier who rose from nothing to the throne of France, and conquered Europe from the Pyrenees to the gates of Moscow, only to lose it all, is an epic of such drama that, in over two hundred years, only one person has managed to make it boring. Heaven knows how Ridley Scott managed... read more

John Adamson

The Last Invasion of England: 1688 and the Dutch Armada

By Arthur der Weduwen

Much is exceptional about the Bayeux Tapestry currently on magnificent display in the British Museum, but nothing is quite so exceptional as the event itself. As the museum’s website reminds us, 1066 ‘was the last time England was successfully invaded’. Our sea-girt immunity from foreign invasion has been at the centre... read more

Erik Linstrum

The Age of Confiscation: Making and Taking Property in the Creation of the Modern World

By Nicholas Mulder

Do states exist to protect private property? It’s a familiar idea, especially in the English-speaking world, and often credited to philosopher John Locke (1632–1704). In the Second Treatise of Government, published in 1690, Locke outlined his version of the social contract... read more

Diane Purkiss

Yap!: A Short History of Small Dogs

By Stephanie Howard-Smith

Looty. Pimperl. Jupiter. Masterpiece. Cherry. Miss Candyfloss. Purkoy. Sappho. Lady Anderson. Diamond Baby. These are the names of cherished small dogs of the kind that belonged to queens including Anne Boleyn and Mary, Queen of Scots. If some of the names suggest prostitutes, sex toys or young children, that is as it should be, because, as this entertaining... read more

Peter Marshall

King’s Secretary: William Paget and the Last Years of the Reign of Henry VIII

By Andrew Johnston

Tudor history buffs and attentive readers of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy will recognise the name William Paget. Others will require some words of introduction. Paget (1505/6–63) was an able and influential diplomat and administrator who rose to become principal secretary to Henry VIII... read more

Josh Glancy

American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump

By Kai Bird with Susan Goldmark

Perhaps the most revealing Roy Cohn anecdote in this extraordinary book concerns the time, in 1955, when the infamous lawyer took Barbara Walters out on a first date. Cohn picked up the TV star in his car and drove her to the 21 Club in midtown Manhattan. The traffic was awful... read more