Breaking Bread with the Dead

A Spectator Book of the YearIt''s fashionable to think of the writers of the past as irredeemably tarnished by prejudice. Aristotle despised women. John Milton, the great champion of free speech, wouldn''t have granted it to Catholics. Edith Wharton''s imaginative sympathies stopped short of her Jewish characters. But what if it is only through the works of such individuals that we can achieve a n...