MacCarthy, Fiona

William Morris : a life for our time by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
15 editions published between 1994 and 2010 in English and held by 1,341 libraries worldwide
William Morris was an extraordinary figure, so manifold in his ambitions and talents, so outsize in his personality, that no single biographer has yet come to grips with his entire life, works, and character. As a wonderfully talented designer and artistic entrepreneur, Morris created a style that still lives; as a contradictory political figure - at once a radical and a traditionalist - he was a founding father of British Socialism in the era of Marx and Engels; as a poet and storyteller, he attained a huge contemporary reputation, producing several best-sellers; and as the husband of the Pre-Raphaelite icon Jane Morris (whose love affair with Dante Gabriel Rossetti caused a stir and led to many famous paintings), he was the subject of personal torments as profound as his creative ones. In this biography, Fiona MacCarthy brings all the strands together, from the dreamy boy in a London suburb spinning medieval fantasies to the great bearded patriarch dividing his time between the design and production of beautiful fabrics, the translation of Icelandic epics, and the promotion of Socialism on street corners. Her understanding of his work as an artist-craftsman is profound, yet she is equally illuminating about the strange mixture of nostalgia and yearning for change that shaped his politics. At the same time, she is prepared to deal frankly and in detail with his often painful personal life.

Byron : life and legend by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
10 editions published between 2002 and 2003 in English and held by 1,309 libraries worldwide
With this book, Fiona MacCarthy has produced the most important work on Byron in nearly half a century. Granted unprecedented access to many documents and artifacts unexamined by previous scholars, MacCarthy brings a fresh, engaging sensibility to a full appreciation of the poet's life and art. Byron: life and legend explores heretofore unrevealed aspects of Byron's complex creative existence, reassessing his poetry, reinterpreting his incomparable letters, and reconsidering the voluminous record left by the poet's contemporaries: his friends and family, his critics and supporters. MacCarthy's scope is comprehensive, giving due weight to each aspect of her subject's genius and covering the full range of his life, retracing his journeys through Italy, Turkey, and Greece and culminating in his heroic voyage to Missolonghi, where he died at the tragically early age of thirty-six. After his death, a pervasive Byronism swept Europe presented here is the fascinating evolution of his posthumous reputation and its influence on literature, architecture, painting, music, manners, sex and psyche. Full of energy and detail, subtlety and glamour, this new study reestablishes Byron as a charismatic figure in the forefront of European art.

Stanley Spencer : an English vision by Stanley Spencer ( Book )
1 edition published in 1997 in English and held by 534 libraries worldwide
"Stanley Spencer, a central figure in the current revival of European figurative painting, is among the most important English painters of the twentieth century. In this book, Fiona MacCarthy investigates Spencer's life, sets his work in its cultural context, and emphasises the links between his life and his paintings. With the extensive commentary - edited from Spencer's own writings - on each of the stunning reproductions of Spencer's paintings, this volume provides a comprehensive account of a profoundly original artist and his work."--BOOK JACKET.

Eric Gill : a lover's quest for art and God by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
2 editions published in 1989 in English and held by 409 libraries worldwide

The simple life : C.R. Ashbee in the Cotswolds by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
8 editions published between 1981 and 2009 in English and held by 397 libraries worldwide

All things bright and beautiful; design in Britain, 1830 to today by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
5 editions published in 1972 in English and held by 353 libraries worldwide

Eric Gill by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
8 editions published between 1989 and 2003 in English and Undetermined and held by 336 libraries worldwide

British design since 1880 : a visual history by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
5 editions published in 1982 in English and held by 285 libraries worldwide

A history of British design, 1830-1970 by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
4 editions published in 1979 in English and held by 261 libraries worldwide

Last curtsey : the end of the debutantes by Fiona MacCarthy ( Book )
3 editions published in 2006 in English and held by 220 libraries worldwide