Happily, the cancer drug Erbitux had a curative effect on him, as did the methods of Dr. Everett Nokes.

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Caroline Nokes, MP for Romsey and Southampton North, said "massive strides" had been made by the school but "more needs to be done".

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David Nokes has, of course, the same story to tell: he confronts the same lacunae and adopts, to some extent, a similar technique.

ECONOMIST: Literary lives

Some years ago, Mr Nokes wrote an excellent, rigorous and scholarly life of Jonathan Swift, so that his fanciful approach to Jane Austen comes as something of a surprise and a disappointment.

ECONOMIST: Literary lives

But Mr Nokes's Jane is more cynical and cruel than is credible: he seems almost to blame her for the banishment of her mentally retarded brother, though it happened before she was born and she never knew him.

ECONOMIST: Literary lives