The man behind the paintings: the extraordinary life of J. M. W Turner, one of Britain's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated artistsJ. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise, and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in...

Their Bohemian lifestyle and intertwined love affairs shockingly broke 19th Century class barriers and bent the rules that governed the roles of the sexes. They became defined by love triangles, played out against the austere moral climate of Victorian England; they outraged their contemporaries with their loves, jealousies and betrayals, and they stunned society when their complex moral choices led to madness and suicide, or when their permissive experiments ended in addiction and death. ...

From the acclaimed author of The King's Painter, a vivid life-and-times biography of two unjustly neglected women artists, Angelica Kauffman and Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun.In the late autumn of 1789, two of Europe's most celebrated painters met in Rome. One, Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss-born prodigy who had conquered the art scenes of London and Italy. The other, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, a Parisienne portraitist and favourite of the ancien regime, ha...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'A great, thrusting codpiece of a book. It is big, bombastic and richly brocaded... A jewel in its own right' The Times'Evokes the painter and his world as vividly as a Holbein masterpiece. Beautifully written and illustrated, this book is a must for lovers of Tudor history' Tracy BormanFull of insight... This is a gorgeous book, to which I am sure I shall return again ...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Turner by Franny Moyle, read by John Sackville.The extraordinary life of J. M. W Turner, one of Britain's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated artistsJ. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifi...

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'A great, thrusting codpiece of a book. It is big, bombastic and richly brocaded ... A jewel in its own right' The Times'Evokes the painter and his world as vividly as a Holbein masterpiece. Beautifully written and illustrated, this book is a must for lovers of Tudor history' Tracy BormanFull of insight ... This is a gorgeous book, to which I am sure I shall return again and again' Dan JonesHans Holbein the Younger is chiefly ce...

In the spring of 1895 the life of Constance Wilde changed irrevocably. Up until the conviction of her husband, Oscar, for homosexual crimes, she had held a privileged position in society. Part of a gilded couple, she was a popular children's author, a fashion icon, and a leading campaigner for women's rights. A founding member of the magical society the Golden Dawn, her pioneering and questioning spirit encouraged her to sample some of the more controversial aspects of her time. Mrs Oscar ...

Bloomsbury presents Mrs Kauffman and Madame Le Brun: The Extraordinary Entwined Lives of Two Eighteenth-Century Painters, written and read by Franny Moyle.In the late autumn of 1789, two of Europe’s most celebrated painters met in Rome. One, Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss-born prodigy who had conquered the art scenes of London and Italy. The other, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, a Parisienne portraitist and favourite of the ancien regime, had just fled revolutionary Franc...

The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire.They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege in the early years of the 20t...

The supermodel did not arrive when Twiggy first donned false eyelashes; the concept began more than 100 years previously, with a young artists' model whose face captivated a generation. Saved from the drudgery of a working-class existence by a young Pre-Raphaelite artist, Lizzie Siddal rose to become one of the most famous faces in Victorian Britain and a pivotal figure of London's artistic world, until tragically ending her young life in a laudanum-soaked suicide in 1862. In the twenty-first...

The scandalous love triangle at the heart of the Victorian art world. Effie Gray, a Scottish beauty, was the heroine of a great Victorian love story. Married at nineteen to John Ruskin, she found herself trapped in a loveless and unconsummated union. When her husband invited his protégé John Everett Millais away on holiday, she and Millais fell in love. Effie would inspire some of Millais's most haunting images, and embody Victorian society's fears about female sexuality.Effie risk...

Throughout history women have caused wars, defied the rules, and brought men to their knees. The famous and the infamous, queens, divorcées, actresses, and outlaws have created a ruckus during their lifetimes-turning heads while making waves. Scandalous Women tells the stories of the risk takers who have flouted convention, beaten the odds, and determined the course of world events.*When Cleopatra (69 BC-30 BC) wasn't bathing in asses' milk, the last pharaoh of the Ptolema...