Annan provides memorable portraits of many Oxbridge dons, even as he shows how different from our own were the eras in which these men (and, far too belatedly, women) worked. For example, consider the following:

** The two opiates to be avoided at all costs were love of success and a preoccupation with money. Lowes Dickinson's most famous pupil was E. M. Forster, who in his novels tooks Dickinson's ideas a stage further; and he summarised the King's [College] ethos by saying that it was a place that "taught the perky boy that he was not everything and the limp boy that he might be something." **

Alas, this is not _our_ era . . .

The book is also packed with amusing quotes from the dons themselves, such as the following message from one don to another:

** On our return last night I found as I thought that a spider had crawled out of the inkstand over a piece of paper; but it turns out to be a hieroglyphic from which I so far interpreted as to perceive it was an invitation to meet some professor whose name as you wrote it looked somewhat indecent. I shall be happy to wait on you and take the opportunity of learning the Eyptian mode of writing. **

Annan's book is ultimately an elegy because Margaret Thatcher, among others, did so much to ruin the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.