Isaiah Berlin

EB loved Oxford (where she and her husband spent ten years) and became a social success there. She met and became friends with John and Susan Buchan , and it was through them that she...

Family friends and frequent visitors to the Pakenham household included J. M. Keynes , William Beveridge (whom AF 's father had assisted in plans for the postwar Welfare State), Hugh Gaitskell , and (particularly good...

She made literary friends early: Montagu Slater , St John Ervine , and Isaiah Berlin . Through the Parisian family friends Charlotte and Simone Richard , she met the French writer Francis Ponge .

EB suffered from recurrent bouts of bronchitis and a chronic smoker's cough. In 1972, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent radium treatment. She lost her voice and had considerable difficulty breathing. She was...

AA arrived at Oxford for the conferring of a D.Litt. degree (at the instigation in part of Isaiah Berlin ); at the ceremony she was called the the Russian Sappho.

AA composed a poem which became the first in the cycle entitled Cinque, about a night talking with the young Isaiah Berlin (then recently posted to the British Embassy in Moscow), who brought her...