First impressions

The opening lines of this week's book were penned by an author who now permanently resides in Highgate:

"In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses - and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak - there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race."

The winner of last week's competition, who identified Bishop George Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge , is Peter Barnes of the Open University.