As several readers may know, my day job is looking after Chedworth Roman Villa in the Cotswolds. Chedworth sits comfortably within a region that supported some of the most prosperous rural estates in Britannia. Yet the world that sustained and shaped the villa extended far beyond the Coln valley.
BOOK REVIEWS
Stephen Coan’s The Buried Man can only be described as magisterial. It is the culmination of decades of patient, methodical, and deeply informed scholarship. Coan has lived with, traced, and tracked H. Rider Haggard for much of his adult life, and this monumental volume represents the distillation of that long engagement. It is unlikely to be surpassed for a very long time.
BLUE PLAQUES
Among the victims killed on June 16 was Dr Edelstein, a sociologist and social worker who served for 18 years assisting youth and communities in Soweto. Earlier that morning, he greeted protesting students as they passed his offices at 3940 Mputhi Street, but after the shock was felt from the first shootings by police, high spirits turned to anger, and Edelstein was slain by a crowd of enraged youth.