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Against this tech-inflected landscape, Thomas Harding’s more than serviceable new biography of George Weidenfeld, long a force of letters in England and briefly in the United States, floats as if on stained foolscap.

It consists of calculations etched largely in ink on yellowed leaves of foolscap and squared paper, with 26 pages in Einstein’s handwriting, 25 pages in Besso’s and three containing entries from both scientists.

The map runs to sixteen laminated foolscap pages, or about ten square feet, when I tile the pages together.

A sheaf of foolscap from her father’s office was before her, the desk light threw down its comforting yellow patch, the fountain pen was in her hand.

I pulled out a new nib and my box of good glossy foolscap paper reserved for special occasions.