Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, in 1727, Thomas Gainsborough was perhaps the best-known portrait painter of the eighteenth century. This 1856 work by George Williams Fulcher (1795-1855), bookseller and poet, also of Sudbury, was seen through the press by his son after his sudden death, and was, surprisingly, the first biography of the painter. Educated at the local grammar school, Gainsborough moved to London in about 1740, and received some artistic training there, but returned, a married man, to Sudbury in 1749, and thereafter moved to Ipswich and then Bath as he became more fashionable as a...

Sir William Martin Conway (1856 1937), well known as an alpinist (his The Alps from End to End is also reissued in this series), was by profession an art historian. Supported by Henry Bradshaw of the University of Cambridge, he pursued his interest in the woodcuts and early printed books of the Low Countries, publishing this work in 1884. The study considers both prints and books, noting instances of the reuse of the same blocks in different works by different printers. The first part surveys the craftsmen (many of whom are anonymous) by town, and the second is a comprehensive catalogue of...

The young Elizabeth Butler (nee Thompson, 1846 1933) and her sister, the poet Alice Meynell, were educated at home by their wealthy father, and much of their childhood was spent in Italy. Elizabeth began to train as an artist at the Female School of Art, South Kensington, in 1866. She became famous for her work in the genre (unusual for a woman) of military art, one of her best known paintings being The Roll Call, an imagined incident from the Crimea. She took great trouble to ensure the accuracy of the detail of regimental uniform, and her depiction of the bravery and stoicism of the...

The literary scholar Samuel Weller Singer (1783 1858) was largely self-taught, but his enthusiasm for reading caused him to open a bookshop, and he developed a wide circle of bibliomaniac friends, including Francis Douce (who later left him enough money to retire from writing for a living). He was an editor of many early modern poets, and his editions of John Selden's Table-Talk and Joseph Spence's Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men are also reissued in this series. This highly illustrated 1816 work, originally published in a run of only 250 copies, was praised for its...

Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) was arguably the first British industrial designer, and this 1862 work was his most influential book. He worked in a variety of media, from wallpaper and textile design to metalwork and ceramics, but was also a botanist, and his two professorial roles in fine and ornamental arts, at the South Kensington Museum and the Crystal Palace, included the teaching of botany. Unlike William Morris, Dresser believed that good design could and should be mass-produced by industrial methods, so that it became affordable to all classes. He describes here how decorative...

An architect and architectural theorist, George Edmund Street (1824-81) was one of the key proponents of the 'High Victorian' Gothic style in nineteenth-century Britain. He is best known as the mind behind London's Royal Courts of Justice. Elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1866, Street became its professor of architecture in 1880. In 1874 he received the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and he served as the Institute's president in 1881. This two-volume work was first published in 1865, and is reissued here in its 1914 version, edited by the American art...

An architect and architectural theorist, George Edmund Street (1824-81) was one of the key proponents of the 'High Victorian' Gothic style in nineteenth-century Britain. He is best known as the mind behind London's Royal Courts of Justice. Elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1866, Street became its professor of architecture in 1880. In 1874 he received the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and he served as the Institute's president in 1881. This two-volume work was first published in 1865, and is reissued here in its 1914 version, edited by the American art...

The first pages of this 1890 work contain an account of the efforts of various 'pirates' to publish a selection of the letters of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), and their ultimate frustration. In fact, the American journalist Sheridan Ford had been given informal permission by Whistler, who then changed his mind, decided to publish a book with his own design, and took legal action to suppress Ford's version. The 'prologue' is an extract from the review by Ruskin which led to the famous libel case in which Whistler was paid one farthing in damages, and the first part is a...

This two-volume biography of the sixteenth-century French potter and natural scientist Bernard Palissy (c.1510 c.1590) was published in 1852, the year after the Great Exhibition, in which Palissy's extraordinary art had been brought before the Victorian public by Minton's highly decorated 'Palissy wares'. Henry Morley (1822 94) trained in medicine but later became an author and editor, writing for Charles Dickens among others. Here he gathers together all the material then available about Palissy, including the potter's own writings and a contemporary biography. Palissy was among the many...

This two-volume biography of the sixteenth-century French potter and natural scientist Bernard Palissy (c.1510 c.1590) was published in 1852, the year after the Great Exhibition, in which Palissy's extraordinary art had been brought before the Victorian public by Minton's highly decorated 'Palissy wares'. Henry Morley (1822 94) trained in medicine but later became an author and editor, writing for Charles Dickens among others. Here he gathers together all the material then available about Palissy, including the potter's own writings and a contemporary biography. Palissy was among the many...