This is a book about an editorial life, about a literary culture sometimes spoken of as doomed, and about the politics of a period which has seen a defeat for democratic socialism and the accession to power of a remodelled Labour Party well to the right of Hugh Gaitskell's. Karl Miller was a literary editor of the Spectator and the New Statesman, editor of the Listener and founding editor of the London Review of Books and author of Rebecca's Vest. Three of these journals were politically impartial. Each was to pursue an understanding of literature, at a time when ambiguity and irony had acquired a fascination,when the truth is to be found in books had been thrown into uncertainty, and when the literature which had become more widely accessible could be thought to need defending. Dark Horses is a tribute to the writers with whom Karl Miller worked. Karl Miller has been at the centre of British literary life for over 40 years. These are his recollections of authors like Kingsley Amis, V.S.Naipaul, Brigid Brophy, Conor Cruise O'Brien and Seamus Heaney; on the anti-semitism of T.S. Eliot and Graham Greene, the infamy of Eric Cantona, and many others, as well as his reflections on football and the laddishness of the present time. The Dark Horses of the title are inhabitants of the literary world experienced in the book, which says that this world is still standing. It also says that books and their are indivisible, and that Scotland and England should stay together. Literacy journalism has rarely been explored in recent times. Here is a memorable account.