‘A sweeping, engrossing and overwhelmingly impressive piece of work’
David Horspool, Daily Telegraph
‘A master of the revels, Bradbury is playful and self-deprecating . . . History is nothing if not a joker, and Malcolm Bradbury, in cracking faux-naif form, teaches us how to deal with its laughter’
David Coward, Times Literary Supplement
‘Bradbury is clever, tricky, hugely entertaining . . . To the Hermitage is delightfully stimulating. As readers, we watch and admire Bradbury’s intellectual fireworks display. His set pieces are brilliant, incisive, funny’
Brian Martin, Financial Times
‘Astoundingly energetic and remarkably funny’
Teresa Waugh, The Oldie
‘The book is vastly but lightly erudite. Just when you think it is becoming excessively playful . . . Bradbury injects some serious point about culture, music, philosophy. And should the philosophy threaten to turn weighty, back comes the humour . . . To mix past and present, fact and fiction, humour and sobriety as freely as Bradbury does . . . is a bold technique, but Bradbury has the right qualifications and more than gets away with it’
George Walden, Sunday Telegraph
‘Playful, erudite, funny and thoroughly enjoyable’
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Spectator
‘Entertaining, informative, easily read . . . this is an intensely literary novel . . . [Bradbury] wears his learning lightly, handles it and deploys it deftly’
Allan Massie, Scotsman
‘The novel itself dispenses with the notion that writing ought to be spare and minimal; this is a BIG novel. It reads with the fluidity only such an accomplished narrator can control . . . A demanding and deeply rewarding novel’
John F. Deane, Irish Independent
‘To the Hermitage is Bradbury at his playfully erudite best’
Lucy Beresford, Daily Mail
‘This is a delightful book. Bradbury clearly enjoyed its creation. He is a fine satirist’
Tobias Hill, The Observer
‘His formidable depth of knowledge, held in check by the warm-hearted generosity of a born teacher, is never overwhelming’
Maria Fairweather, Mail on Sunday