The definitive biography of J.M.W. Turner.

'A pleasure to read'.' A.S. BYATT

'With splendid clarity and shrewd humour, James Hamilton evokes the visceral world of a great artist and a fascinating character.' MIKE LEIGH

In 1799, aged just 24, Turner became an Associate of the Royal Academy. While influential collectors competed to buy his paintings, he travelled widely, observing landscape and people and gathering material for a cycle of images that would come to express the collective identity of Britain.

In this lucid blend of vibrant biography and acute art history, James Hamilton introduces Turner to a new generation of readers and paints a picture of a uniquely generous human being, a giant of the nineteenth century and a beacon for the twenty-first.