The experimental poet E. E. Cummings grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a family dominated by an overbearing father, "the Reverend", a man in whom social liberalism fought unsuccessfully with repressive authoritarianism. The domestic situation was not much lightened by Cummings's mother, who strongly believed in cold baths, though this may have stood her son in good stead when, as a volunteer ambulance driver in the Great War, he was incarcerated in a French prison in 1917. The young Cummings was sensitive and a good artist, attending nearby Harvard university, where his dyslexia may have contributed to the development of an experimental poetic style. Through the undergraduate literary magazine Monthly he met the novelist Dos Passos who became a lifelong friend. An exhibition of paintings by avant-garde artists such as Gauguin, Kandinsky, Rousseau, Picabia and Munch introduced Cummings to Modernism, and in 1913 he was transfixed by Duchamps's "Nude Descending a Staircase", a pioneering Cubist work. After an unhappy relationship with his girlfriend Doris Bryan, Cummings fell under the spell of his friend Scofield Thayer's wife Elaine. Cummings wrote a poem for their marriage, and years later he was to have an affair with Elaine, eventually marrying her himself. In 1917 he sailed for France to volunteer for the ambulance service and soon became part of the Paris bohemian scene, attending the premiere of Satie's iconic ballet Parade, designed by Cocteau, costumed by Picasso, and performed by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Cummings now fell in love with the prostitute Marie Louise, and although he was reluctant to have sex with her, his drawings of Marie Louise show an uninhibited fascination with her way of life. Finally he left for the Front, where his unexplained though short-lived prison sentence might possibly have been a stitch-up by censors tampering with letters home. 335pp.

Artist and hostess, poet and musician, Lady Anne Barnard lived at the heart of Georgian society. High-born yet egalitarian, she travelled to France to observe the Revolution, rejected numerous suitors, and lived independently. Her curious ways attracted gossip right into her final years when she raised an illegitimate child at her home in Berkeley Square. The Prince of Wales counted among many friends and she was brilliant in company, but she was seen as an outsider and an eccentric. When she did marry it was to a junior army officer, 12 years younger than herself, and together they withdrew to Africa. Her final years were still attracting gossip when she was raising the mysterious dark-skinned child. Anne Barnard's verse was celebrated by Walter Scott, but she was also a brilliant and indefatigable diarist. Stephen Taylor has been given access to her private papers, notably six volumes of memoirs which have never been published, which show her to be one of the unheralded chroniclers of her time and a pioneering and defiant woman. A specially interesting section is when she became the 'princess' of newly acquired Cape Town, and the book opens a window into late 18th century England, the effect of the Revolutionary War giving birth to the USA, and the French Revolution, and the impact these had on the English people to Lady Anne who was born in Scotland to a somewhat impoverished family of the minor nobility. 'Scrupulous, affectionate and well written...with a fascinating twist in the final pages.' - Virginia Nicholson. 396pp, paperback, colour photo and other illus.

Whereas many aspects of Jane Austen's life are well known and documented, others are shrouded in mystery and this was not a result of any action on her part. It was principally because of the actions of her sister Cassandra who, after Jane's death, deliberately destroyed numerous letters sent by her to family and friends. They alluded to the fact that, at the turn of the 17th to 18th century, Jane fell in love with a person whose identity has remained a mystery. It is possible that after a passage of more than two centuries and despite the fact that Cassandra destroyed letters that this mystery lover is identified. Barrington Court in Somersetshire is one of the National Trust's most prestigious properties and evidence is produced for the very first time that this property was Jane's inspiration for Kellynch Hall, home of Sir Walter Elliot in Persuasion. The book chronicles her relationship with family and friends who would later populate her novel like her sister and the vivacious Francophile Eliza de Feuillide. From amateur dramatics held in her family home in Steventon and early experimentations in Juvenilia, to her sojourns in Bath and fatal illness while penning Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, the correspondence compiled here gives a touching account of the places and personalities which inspired Jane Austen. The book is supplemented by relevant incisions into her novels, and Andrew Norman's biography yields an intriguing new solution to the mystery of her unrequited love. With family trees and appendices and photos, 157pp in paperback.

An insightful biography on the life of a writer who had direct and undeniable influence on the life and works of Jane Austen who was her confidante and an immense source of inspiration as Jane developed her own talents. Before her marriage, Anne had produced a portfolio of verse. While fulfilling all her duties as the Rector's wife of Ashe, Hampshire, Anne continued to write even as Jane Austen was working on her precocious juvenilia at neighbouring Steventon. The Austens and the Lefroys were close friends and allies in the local community. Anne was also the aunt of Tom Lefroy. Jane and Tom shared a loving friendship that some believed might translate into marriage, but that was not to be and Jane remained unmarried for the rest of her life. It was the experience which Jane may eventually have transformed into the background of her most emotional novel, Persuasion. Anne died in a riding accident on the 16th December 1804, on Jane's 29th birthday. Anne was in her mid 50s. Four years on, Jane wrote a lament for Anne's medium of verse, an outpouring of emotion which has no parallel in either her novels or her surviving letters. It was Jane Austen as we have never seen her in a bold appropriation of masculine literary modes. The biographer publishes for the first time in one place since 1812 texts of most of Anne Lefroy's known poems as she brings a wealth of insight to this illuminating history of a literary friendship. The book also addresses developments across a period of great social and political change and sets Lefroy's life in context. She looks at the war against Napoleon and illustrates evolutions in health care as well as changes in religious beliefs and practices that impacted on the lives of the Austens, the Lefroys and their circle. Much speculation for diehard fans. 263pp.

'Curious Busts from Nature as Large as Life,' was just one advertisement for Madame Tussaud's wax work exhibition. Madame Marie Tussaud launched her chain of wax museums more than 200 years ago but what few people know is that her original wax models were often based on famous and infamous people that she was acquainted with during and after the French revolution. Madame Tussaud created many figures in wax, from the philosopher Voltaire (of whom she said, 'the dross wants separating from the gold'), French lawyer and statesman Maximilien Robespierre (who Marie said she witnessed surrounded by his victims' relations on the way to his execution at the guillotine), and leader of the French revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, whose relics were displayed in her exhibition hall in London in 1843. Marie Tussaud took to wax making under the tutelage of Dr Philippe Mathé Curtius, who made a name making anatomical models for medical students, and was employed by him in 1777. She travelled to England in 1802, mainly because she felt France was volatile and its economy declining under the rule of Napoleon, but also because she said she was escaping an 'unsupportive and worthless' husband. Marie then launched a display under her own name in London in 1808. The exhibition hosted a Chamber of Horrors, the Napoleon Rooms, the Great Room in which there were gilt ornaments in the style of Louis XVI and a Hall of Kings section featuring Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots and the Hanoverians. Through this book. discover the sad place wax had in Marie's personal life as, when her daughter Marie Marguerite Pauline died six months after she was born on 1 September 1797, all Marie had to remember her by was a wax sculpture she had made before her child's death. Learn that she knew murder was a popular attraction for the public in the early 19th century and so, when an Irish soldier in the English army conspired but failed to assassinate King George III, she began devising a plan to obtain a copy of his severed head even before his execution. The book also includes fantastic images, from a shot of Marie's death mask and a model of Madame du Barry called The Sleeping Beauty, to a wax figure of Queen Victoria as seen today at the exhibition. Black and white images, 234pp.

Sub-titled 'The Life and Murder of Henry, Lord Darnley' this engaging and well researched biography re-examines the famous murder and brings new light and compelling confusions to a story surrounded by political betrayal, murder, falsified evidence, conspiracy and love. In the early hours of 10th February 1567, a large explosion ripped through the Old Provost's lodging at Kirk o'Field, Edinburgh, where Mary Queen of Scotland's consort Henry Lord Darnley was staying. His body was found with that of his valet in a neighbouring garden the next morning. The Queen's husband had been suffocated and the ramifications for Mary and Scottish history would be far-reaching. Lord Darnley cuts an infamous figure in Scottish and Tudor history. In life he proved a controversial character and his murder remains one of history's great and unresolved mysteries - establishing whether Mary was implicated has taxed historians for the subsequent 450 years. The book sets in motion a series of events leading to Mary Queen of Scots's downfall. Was there a conspiracy between the Scottish peers and William Cecil? Was his objective to keep Mary from the English throne? Darnley was the son of Matthew Stuart, Fourth Earl of Lennox and thus directly bound by blood to one of the most powerful families in Scotland. As the oldest son of Margaret Douglas, the eldest sister of Henry VIII, King of England, Darnley was related to the Tudor rulers of England and thus Queen Elizabeth I. The family trees are particularly useful when there is such a muddle of titles to absorb. The second part of the book covers the struggle for recognition to the succession as England's ruler and the third part the schemes to marry Darnley to Mary, who wanted the marriage and why, and the outcome of that marriage. The final parts cover the death of the king and what happened. The book shines a light on a human drama and power struggle taking place on a much bigger geopolitical stage. 330pp, colour plates, illus. and maps.

A BBC Radio Four Book of the Week, part biography, part literary criticism, part exploration of Scottish identity, this is by far the best book on Sir Walter Scott. No writer has ever been as famous as Scott once was and none ever enjoyed such huge acclaim followed by such absolute neglect and outright hostility. But Scotland would not be Scotland except for Scott. All the icons of Scottishness have their roots in his novels, poems, public events and histories and it's a legacy both inspiring and constraining and just one of the ironies that fuse Scott and Scotland. Stuart Kelly reveals the paradox - the celebrity unknown, the nationalist unionist, the aristocrat loved by communists, the forward-looking reactionary. Part surreptitious autobiography, Stuart Kelly unveils a complex and contradictory man and the complex country he created in his witty and melancholy 'Voyage around my Fatherland' like no other. Sir Walter Scott was passionate, wholly European and the first truly global writer, heralded as inventing the historical novel. Chapters include The Royal Mile, Minstrelsy, Waverley, Ghosts, Ivanhoe, Captain Clutterbuck, Balmorality, Tartanry and Scotlandshire and The Last Works among them. 328pp, paperback.

A major biography of James McNeill Whistler, one of the most intriguing and complex and important of America's artists. The first biography in more than 20 years makes use of the artist's private correspondence to tell the story of his life and work. This engaging personal history dispels the popular notion of Whistler (1834-1903) as merely a combative, eccentric and unrelenting publicity seeker, a man as renowned for his public feuds with Oscar Wilde and John Ruskin as for the iconic portrait of his mother. Revealed here is an intense, introspective and complex man, plagued by self-doubt and haunted by an endless pursuit of perfection in his painting and drawing. 'The biography recounts Whistler's career in chronological order, is generous with detail and keeps psychological speculation to a minimum' - Michael Prodger. There are three thick wedges of plates so that the paintings are on hand to study. 107 illustrations in total, many in colour in this glamorous Yale University Press outsize softback, 440pp.

Painter, poet, immigrant, rebel and global citizen, born in Lebanon, Kahlil Gibran emigrated to America as a young man in the 1890s, where he became a successful artist and prose poet. His book The Prophet of 1923 became a worldwide bestseller, selling 40 million copies and being translated into more than 40 languages. It is a series of 26 philosophical essays written in poetic English prose, and as a writer, Gibran encouraged a renaissance in Arab literature. As an artist he painted hundreds of canvases including portraits of artistic celebrities. Raised a Maronite Catholic, his spirituality and thought embraces elements of other traditions including Sufi mysticism and the Baha'i faith. From his childhood and spiritual roots in Mount Lebanon, to the city wilderness of urban America, from his apprenticeships in the creative circles of Boston, Beirut, Paris and New York to his art and activism for Greater Syria, Gibran crafted a religiously inclusive art that embraced a universal message, informed by Christian, Islamic and Judaic elements. Exiled between the worlds of the Middle East and the West, he defied boundaries to assert a vision of an underlying humanity and faith that all people can share. This richly illustrated biography draws on a lifetime of dedicated research to tell his compelling story and how his determination and talent broke down barriers to forge a new and fruitful life and career in a new homeland. A splendid tome of 524pp with many illustrations plus eight pages of colour plates including his beautiful oil paintings Family Scene and Ages of Women. 24.8 x 18.7cm x 5cm deep, this really is a whopping heavyweight tome complete with elegant pagemarker.

For this unusual literary study, Sir Jonathan Bate, expert on Shakespeare and much else, takes the star-crossed figures of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald, separated by a century, and gives them a double biography in the tradition of the classical biographer Plutarch, using each one's life story to draw out illuminating similarities and differences. Both writers cherished an unconsummated passion for an unattainable woman, in Keats's case for his neighbour Fanny Brawne, for whom he wrote the celebrated sonnet "Bright star!". Poems such as "St Agnes' Eve" describe lovers who are divided by circumstance, a theme Keats shares with Scott Fitzgerald. For Fitzgerald the unattainable woman was Ginevra King, whom he met when he was 18 and a student at Princeton. In spite of expressions of intense devotion, Ginevra belonged to a different class and six months after breaking with Fitzgerald she married a wealthy businessman. In an early short story the student Horace Tarbox is seduced from his studies by the ethereal chorus girl Marcia Meadows, and Ginevra was also immortalised as the unattainable Daisy in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald revered Keats and his novel Tender is the Night takes its title from Keats's Ode to a Nightingale, while Keats's own inspiration was Shakespearean, as can be seen in early poems such as Endymion. When Keats left school he was apprenticed to a surgeon and in spite of enjoying some success never wavered in his vocation: "I think I shall be among the English poets after my death," as he memorably wrote. When Keats nursed his brother Tom who died of TB he had a suspicion that he might follow, and his journey to Rome with Joseph Severn was made in the knowledge that he was unlikely to return. Bate's analysis of both writers' work is challenging and perceptive, the biographical detail fully integrated. 415pp, illustrations.