A writer of apparently limitless learning and intelligence, who writes works of scholarship masquerading as popular narrative non-fiction . the man is something else - Guardian An excellent history, just don't read it at the dinner table . this insightful book will give you pause the next time you wipe your nose on the duvet or - social death! - top up your host's glass at a New Year's Eve party - The Times Amusing and enlightening . he is particularly insightful in depicting the evolutionary shift manners have taken since they were first codified on paper in the Middle Ages - Financial Times [Hitchings] is a lovely writer, full of interesting ideas and neat turns of phrase - Daily Mail Hitchings has made a bold, entertaining and often imaginative, assault on a fundamentally impossible subject - Observer Manners is a fascinating subject, and Hitchings handles it with all his customary wit, knowledge and elegance - Mail on Sunday Highly entertaining and absorbing book - Daily Telegraph Understated elegance . it is itself an impeccably well-mannered and deeply English product - The Spectator.