He barely mentions a New Yorker series written towards the end of his life: long profiles of vivid characters he admired, such as Mel Brooks, Johnny Carson, Ralph Richardson and Tom Stoppard.

ECONOMIST: Kenneth Tynan

The fashion for faceless chief executives is part of an understandable reaction against yesterday's imperial bosses, many of whom were vivid characters, capable of holding their own in a cocktail party with Tony Blair, but who collectively brought opprobrium on the system that let them shine.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter

Mantel knows what to select, how to make her scenes vivid, how to kindle her characters.

NEWYORKER: Invitation to a Beheading