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THE ELGIN MARBLES : THE STORY OF ARCHAEOLOGY 'SGREATEST CONTROVERSY by Dorothy King Hutchinson, £18.99, pp. 340, ISBN 0091800137 . £15.19 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655
The acrimonious debate over the Elgin Marbles, housed in the British Museum since 1816, provides the catalyst for this new book. Ever since Lord Byron libelled Lord Elgin in verse as, 'the last, the worst, dull spoiler, ' plundering the temple where 'Pallas lingered, ' homegrown restitutionists have quoted Childe Harold to support the arguments for their return to Greece. John Keats never saw the Parthenon, but his feelings on first encountering its sculptures in London were just as intense. He sat before them in a reverie, staring for hours as they opened the classical world to him. His sonnets written afterwards remind us that these Grecian marbles belong to our national culture too now, as embedded as Cranmer's Prayer Book or the King James' Bible.
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