Charles James Fox, by L.G. Mitchell (Penguin, £8.99 in UK)

Fox was the great Whig of his time, a parliamentarian from the age of nineteen, an inspired orator, liberal almost to the point of radicalism, and in private life an uninhibited, unrepentant rake. His friendly attitude to the French Revolution gave scandal to many of his countrymen, yet he understood the underlying clubmanship of English political life which allowed man to be almost mortal enemies in public, yet boon companions in private. In spite of his considerable talents his long-term judgment was questionable, and his reputation was in eclipse at the time of his rather premature death in 1806, a year after his great adversary, Pitt the Younger. B.F.