When I finished this book I was left wondering why H.L.A. Hart hadn't destroyed his diaries before he died. Perhaps modesty made him think that no one would want to write about him - he was not, in spite of his great distinction, world-famous like his friend Isaiah Berlin. But he certainly could have predicted that his widow Jenifer, whose indiscretion was well established, would do nothing to protect his privacy or her own.

LRB 3 February 2005 | PDF Download