This book is very well put together. If you like Spencer you will refer to it constantly above all other works about him (except a full length biography). There's a lot of writing about his life, and there are many, many color plates of his paintings that provide real depth of viewing what this person was about. All of this is in a pleasing font and design. The best art book I've ever seen.

Fiona MacCarthy's background is in design, which brings a lovely perspective to her biography of Morris. MacCarthy also writes well, which is a plus in a book this size. She writes with affection for her subject, but without any of the bizarre idolatry with which some people approach Morris. He was a crashing bore as a poet, a mere amateur painter, a gifted fabric designer (but there are many gifted fabric designers), and a Socialist who knew only marginally more about what people actually do for a living than did Ruskin. Nevertheless, Morris was a volcano of artistic activity and heart-felt social ideas, and therein lay his genius. MacCarthy does an excellent job bringing Morris's genius to life in this first rate biography.

Most books about William Morris are like rainbows, filled with colorful images. Simply because he made so many wonderful and colorful embroideries, tapestries and patterns, and because color itself is something people like, and therefore buy.

This book doesn't have many colors inside, but it contains many black and white photographs, that are of great interest for those who like to read about William Morris and his time. And the combination of text and photographs create so many images in your mind, that you forget about color.

For the same people, this is the the final book about William Morris and his life. It's not the book to buy, if you want to know all about his printing of books in Kelmscott Press (there you have to go for Peterson's books), but it's the book about all the other stuff you want to know about Morris - and everything, you didn't know, you would want to know.

Having spent more than 5 years on this matter, Fiona MacCarthy has succeeded in making an extraordinary and therefore the final biography on William Morris.

More than 700 pages with more than 100 pages of source and reference notes.

It's a book to read and to read again and to use, when you're working with text about the period, the arts & crafts movement - or simply with Morris. Buy it, even if you don't have the money - wear the old jacket another year. You won't regret.

As long as it's out of print, you have to go to the library, where you should tell them to order some more books, so they print more.

This book is dogmatic and tiresome and silly, which things Byron was not. It fully justifies Byron's bad opinion of scholars and trusts all the calumnies the poet has ever abhored. Skip this biography that does the Murray publishing house as much good as their "Death of God"
Read the poetry and the letters. Read Malcolm Elwin and Drinkwater.

This is a very good biography, full of facts and devoid of speculation. However, reading this biography of Byron, one gets the feeling that perhaps he should have been castrated at birth. Women begged him for his sexual favors and young boys were not immune to his amatory attentions. After a few hundred pages, the litany of B's conquests becomes tiresome and almost boring. Readers who are not interested in the sexual excesses of famous poets won't find much to engage them here.

The author's subtitle is "Life and Legend," but if you are one who admires Byron's poetry, I'd suggest avoiding this book. It might make you admire Byron the person much less. The book doesn't really make clear why Byron's poetry was such a sensation or what made Byron a legend. Perhaps he was charming, but we see little evidence of his charm in this book.

Elizabeth Taylor once said that when she first met Richard Burton, she resolved not to become another notch on his belt. She succumbed anyway. Byron, apparently, never met a woman--and few men--who didn't pant to become a notch on his belt.

Chapter 22 begins "...[Byron] was sick of promiscuity." About time! He is now 31 years old, but any resolve to avoid promiscuity that might have attached to this sentiment didn't last long. He and Teresa Guiccioli (a married woman) jumped into bed at their third meeting. At least he stuck to her longer than to any of his previous amours, though not uninterruptedly, and she was no saint herself. It all sounds quite sordid.

Byron's death is very affecting. The doctors probably killed him with the barbaric contemporary practice of bloodletting.

The author quotes occasionally from Byron's poems but doesn't discuss or analyze any of them.

A more generous use of commas would have improved the readability of the text.