Friday's Notes

Hilary Mantel,"What did her neighbours say when Gabriel had gone?" LRB, 9 April, reviews Miri Rubin's Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary.

Graham Robb,"Rimbaud in the Pléiade," TLS, 15 April, reviews Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud's Oeuvres Complètes, edited by André Guyaux with Aurélia Cervoni.

Michael Dirda,"What Lies Beneath Old-Erotica Covers," Washington Post, 16 April, reviews Donna Dennis's Licentious Gotham: Erotic Publishing and Its Prosecution in Nineteenth-Century New York.

Ross Posnock,"Black is Brilliant," TNR, 15 April, reviews Leonard Harris's and Charles Molesworth's Alain Locke: The Biography of a Philosopher.

"Abuse of Power: The Bush Administration's Secret Legal Memos," ACLU, 16 April, has the four Bush administration memos justifying torture of prisoners and the Obama administration statement that accompanied their release yesterday.