Other writings

Civility and Its Discontents– Jenny Uglow (NYRB)

Review of In Pursuit of Civility: Manners and Civilization in Early Modern England by Keith Thomas

Willie very much admired Keith Thomas. The article quotes from a letter Willie wrote responding to Keith Thomas’s LRB diary entry:

 Some years ago I tried out my first paper on the Muggletonians for his research seminar. I raised a question with him the next morning at breakfast. He instantly went to a side room and came back with a fat envelope marked ‘Muggletonians and animals’. He scattered its contents on the kitchen table. I found what I needed, if my memory is correct, at a point somewhere between the toast and the marmalade