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Blemished perfection
TOM KING browses approvingly through the compendium from London Review of Books, though not without sporadic disappointment

London Review of Books: An Incomplete History
Faber & Faber £35

THERE was a strike at The Times in 1979, a dispute over manning levels and new machinery, which lasted almost a year. No tears to shed over that paper’s absence from the stands, even before the Murdoch years, but there were other consequences too.

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It was answered by Karl Miller, then head of English at University College London and former editor of the BBC magazine the Listener, alongside his erstwhile deputy Mary-Kay Wilmers, both of whom rose to the rather formidable challenge.

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