About the Author

The distinguished literary biographer Richard Holmes is well known for his many books on the Romantic period, including Shelley the Pursuit (1975), Footsteps (1985) and Sidetracks (2000), and his two-volume life of Coleridge, which won the Whitbread Prize and was a New York Times Editor's Choice. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and the first Professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia. After reading English at Oxford, David Crane taught in various universities in England and America. He is the author of an acclaimed biography of Trelawney, Lord Byron's Jackal, and his book on Byron's widow; The Kindness of Sisters is to be published in the New Year.