In this kaleidoscope of stories spanning art, science and poetry, award-winning writer Richard Holmes travels across three centuries, through much of Europe and into the lively company of many earlier biographers.
Central to this pursuit is a powerful evocation of the lives of women both scientific and literary, some well-known and others almost lost: Margaret Cavendish, Mary Somerville, Germaine de Staël, Mary Wollstonecraft and Zélide. He investigates the love-stunned John Keats, the waterlogged Percy Bysshe Shelley, the chocolate-box painter Thomas Lawrence, the opium-soaked genius Coleridge, and the mad-visionary bard William Blake.
The diversity of Holmes's material is testimony to his empathy, erudition and at times his mischievous streak. This is his most personal and seductive writing yet.
| ISBN: | 9780008168728 |
| Publication date: | 5th October 2017 |
| Author: | Richard Holmes |
| Publisher: | William Collins an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 368 pages |
| Genres: |
Biography: science, technology and medicine Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800 Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Biography: arts and entertainment Literary studies: poetry and poets History |