Turner
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  • Published: 7 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241978702
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

Turner

The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J. M. W. Turner

Formats & editions
Paperback
17 Jul 2017
EBook
7 Jul 2016
Audiobook
7 Jul 2016
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One of Britain's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated artists

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Turner by Franny Moyle, read by John Sackville.

J. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise, and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life.

A near mythical figure in his own lifetime, Franny Moyle tells the story of the man who was considered visionary at best and ludicrous at worst. A resolute adventurer, he found new ways of revealing Britain to the British, astounding his audience with his invention and intelligence. Set against the backdrop of the finest homes in Britain, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, this is an astonishing portrait of one of the most important figures in Western art and a vivid evocation of Britain and Europe in flux.
  • Published: 7 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241978702
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
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Praise for Turner

Moyle's superb biography rigorously tackles the myths surrounding Turner's life and presents a vivid portrait of a man whose ideas and behaviour were rooted in the 18th century - and whose work is too often taken out of context

Mail on Sunday

An entrancing biography . . . delightful, sad, and entirely convincing

Guardian (on 'Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde')

Riveting. Moyle captures vividly the texture and colour of this world

Independent on Sunday (on 'Desperate Romantics')

Gripping. Moyle reclaims Constance from the dusty closet out of which Oscar so splendidly and yet so disastrously emerged . . . resetting the balance, gloriously

The Times (on 'Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde')

Powerful, absorbing . . . the jauntiness of Moyle's approach is a refreshing antidote to the incestuous, dreamlike claustrophobia of these interlocking lives

Sunday Times (on 'Desperate Romantics', Art Book of the Year 2009)

Very well researched . . . Moyle achieves an unusual level of empathy

Time Out (on 'Desperate Romantics')