Skip navigation
London Review of Books London Review Bookshop

Articles marked subscriber-only content are available to registered subscribers to the print edition of the London Review of Books. For information about subscribing to the LRB, click here. If you are already a subscriber and you wish to register for online access, click here. Articles marked not in archive are not currently available in the LRB online archive.

John Sutherland

John Sutherland’s Life of Stephen Spender was published in May 2004. Formerly of University College London, he teaches at Caltech in Pasadena.

From the London Review dated 5 July 2001

Long live the codex

  • Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future by Jason Epstein

Jason Epstein’s imagination stretches from primeval man, arranging ‘meaningful phonemes to the beat of stone upon stone or to the sound of hollowed logs used as drums’, to the impact on book business, eons hence, of ‘the global village green . . . undisciplined, polymorphous and polyglot, as has been our fate and our milieu ever since the divine autocracy showed its muscle by toppling the monolingual Tower of Babel’. And yet, for all the grandeur of these moments, Epstein’s perspective will strike cis-Atlantic readers as myopic. [ read more . . . ]

Selected bibliography

  • The Boy Who Loved Books: A Memoir (2007)  Buy this book
  • How to Read a Novel: A User's Guide (2006)
  • Victorian Fiction: Writers, Publishers, Readers (reissue, 2005)
  • Stephen Spender: The Authorised Biography (2004)
  • Last Drink to LA (2001)
  • Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet? Further Puzzles in Classic Fiction (1999)
  • Where Was Rebecca Shot? Puzzles, Curiosities and Conundrums in Modern Fiction (1998)
  • Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? More Puzzles in Classic Fiction (1997)
  • Is Heathcliff a Murderer? Puzzles in Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1996)
  • The Life of Walter Scott: A Critical Biography (1995)
  • Mrs. Humphry Ward: Eminent Victorian, Pre-eminent Edwardian (1990)
  • Fiction and the Fiction Industry (1978)
  • Thackeray at Work (1974)

Search the web for John Sutherland: Google · Yahoo! · AltaVista · Wikipedia

In the LRB archive

subscriber-only content Diary: Do books have a future? · 25 May 2006

subscriber-only content Wolfish · 5 May 2005

  • Publisher by Tom Maschler  Buy this book
  • British Book Publishing as a Business since the 1960s by Eric de Bellaigue  Buy this book
  • Penguin Special: The Life and Times of Allen Lane by Jeremy Lewis

subscriber-only content I am a cactus · 3 June 2004

  • Isherwood by Peter Parker

subscriber-only content A Plumless Pudding · 18 March 2004

subscriber-only content Diary: John Sutherland on the crisis in academic publishing · 22 January 2004

subscriber-only content Doughy · 4 December 2003

  • The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad: Vol. VI 1917-19 edited by Laurence Davies, Frederick R. Karl and Owen Knowles

subscriber-only content Diary: My Grandmother the Thief · 21 August 2003

subscriber-only content Be Rapture Ready! The end times are nigh! · 5 June 2003

  • Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins

subscriber-only content He ate peas with a knife · 3 April 2003

  • Douglas Jerrold: 1803-57 by Michael Slater

subscriber-only content Hoist that dollymop’s sail · 31 October 2002

  • Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
  • The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

subscriber-only content Was Ma Hump to blame? · 11 July 2002

  • Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual by Nicholas Murray
  • The Cat's Meow directed by Peter Bogdanovich (2002)

subscriber-only content Everyone’s Pal · 13 December 2001

  • Red Dog by Louis de Bernières
  • Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World by Louis de Bernières

Long live the codex · 5 July 2001

  • Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future by Jason Epstein

A Dangerously Liquid World · 30 November 2000

  • Bill W. and Mr Wilson: The Legend and Life of AA’s Co-Founder by Matthew Raphael

Sad Professor · 18 February 1999

  • An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture by Roger Scruton

Who owns John Sutherland? · 7 January 1999

The Fight for Eyeballs · 1 October 1998

The Browse Function · 27 November 1997

  • Webonomics: Nine Essential Principles for Growing Your Business on the World Wide Web by Evan Schwartz

Not currently in the LRB archive

 not available in archive Paper or Plastic? · 10 August 2000

  • Gain by Richard Powers

 not available in archive Wife Overboard · 20 January 2000

  • Thackeray by D.J. Taylor

 not available in archive What can happen when you make contact in a MOO · 29 July 1999

  • My Tiny Life: Crime and Punishment in a Virtual World by Donald Dibbell

 not available in archive At Home in the Huntington · 10 June 1999

 not available in archive Home Stretch · 17 September 1998

  • A Serious Man by David Storey
  • Saville by David Storey

 not available in archive Think again, wimp · 16 April 1998

  • Sugar and Spice: A Black Lace Short Story Collection edited by Kerri Sharp
  • Ménage by Emma Holly

 not available in archive Enisled · 19 March 1998

  • A Gift Imprisoned: The Poetic Life of Matthew Arnold by Ian Hamilton

 not available in archive Flying the Coop · 19 February 1998

  • Fanny Trollope: The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman by Pamela Neville-Sington

From the LRB letters page