How an aspiring writer came to produce a string of best-selling novels

Set against the backdrop of the Atlantic slave trade, this book traces the development, exhibition and final disposition of one of J.M.W. Turner s greatest and most memorable paintings. Queen Victoria s reign (1837 1901) in Great Britain produced unprecedented wealth and luxury. For artists and writers this period was particularly noteworthy in that it gave them the opportunity to both praise their country and criticize its overreaching ambition. At the forefront of these artists and writers were men like J.M.W. Turner, Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, and John Ruskin, who created some of the...