The Brooknerian

  I am apostolic about the novels of Edith Templeton, a Czech who writes in impeccable English: they are extremely restrained and tell strong stories about life in old-style central Europe, with recognisable passions and follies. Lovely, lovely novels. Anita Brookner, interviewed by John Haffenden, 1985 In the 1980s Anita Brookner wrote introductions to several of Templeton's novels, published by Hogarth. I haven't read them, so cannot comment, but I recently got hold of The Surprise of Cremona  (1954), a travel book reissued in the 2000s with an introduction by Brookner: My only meeting with Edith Templeton took place in her flat in Bordighera some time in the mid-1980s. I found an isolated and eccentric woman: I saw from the expression on her face as we were introduced that the same judgement had been passed on myself. Earlier, in the  Spectator  ( here ), Brookner had spoken of this rather delicious encounter (and in Bordighera too, a setting for Brook...