The Royal Academician Charles Leslie (1794–1859) also wrote biographies of fellow painters. His life of John Constable and a two-volume work on Sir Joshua Reynolds are also reissued in this series. On his death, the Reynolds work was completed by the journalist and dramatist Tom Taylor (1817–80), who also edited Leslie's two-volume autobiography, published in 1860. Though born in London, Leslie was an American, a child prodigy in drawing, who returned to Britain in 1811 to study painting with Benjamin West and Washington Allston. He had enormous admiration for the paintings of his contemporaries and of the previous generation, and his reminiscences are intended to preserve 'some recollections of those chiefly whom I could praise'. Volume 1 of this lively and self-deprecating work, full of good-humoured anecdotes, is prefaced by an introductory essay by Taylor on Leslie and his art.
- ISBN13 9781107450110
- Publish Date 5 November 2014 (first published 22 May 2014)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Cambridge University Press
- Format eBook
- Language English