This anthology has given me a lot of trouble, just its presence on the coffee table seems to send my children into a furore of activity, and causes the phone to ring incessantly. Which meant for some considerable time the nearest I got to indulging in its tales of the...

I've a certain admiration for the Marquis de Sade, not for his politics, his philosophy or his sexual peccadilloes, but simply for his magnificent ending to Justine. It's just so gloriously overindulgent. It's also one of the funniest things I've ever read, which...