Jennifer S. Uglow

A sparkling biography of the poet and artist Edward Lear by the award-winning biographer Jenny UglowEdward Lear, the renowned English artist, musician, author, and poet, lived a vivid, fascinating life, but confessed, "I hardly enjoy any one thing on earth while it is present." He was a man in a hurry, "running about on railroads" from London to country estates and boarding steamships to Italy, Corfu, India, and Palestine. He is still loved for his...

In the 1760s a group of amateur experimenters met and made friends in the English Midlands. Most came from humble families, all lived far from the center of things, but they were young and their optimism was boundless: together they would change the world. Among them were the ambitious toy maker Matthew Boulton and his partner James Watt, of steam-engine fame; the potter Josiah Wedgwood; the larger-than-life Erasmus Darwin, physician, poet, inventor,...