When the author bought a falling down fortified house on the
Staffordshire moorlands, he had no reason to anticipate the
astonishing tale that would unfold as it was restored. An
increasingly mysterious, set of relationships emerged amongst its
former owners, revolving round a now almost forgotten artist.
Robert Bateman, in his youth was a prominent Pre-Raphaelite and
friend of Burne Jones. The son of a local millionaire, he was to
marry the granddaughter of the Earl of Carlisle, and to be
associated with both Disraeli and Gladstone, and other prominent
political and artistic figures. But he had abandoned his life as a
public artist in mid-career for no obvious reason, to live as a
recluse, while his father lost his money, and his rich and
glamorous wife-to-be had married the local vicar, already in his
sixties and shortly to die. The discovery of two paintings by
Bateman, both clearly autobiographical, led to an utterly absorbing
forensic investigation into Bateman's life. The story moves from
Staffordshire to Lahore in India, to Canada, to Wyoming, and then,
via Buffalo Bill to Peru and back to England. It leads to the
improbable respectability of the Wills (now Imperial Tobacco)
cigarette business in Bristol, and then, less respectably, to a car
park in Stoke on Trent. En route the author pieces together, and
illustrates, an astonishing and deeply moving story of love and
loss, of art and politics, of morality and hypocrisy, of family
secrets, concealed but never quite completely obscured. The result
is a page-turning combination of detective story and tale of human
frailty, endeavour and love. It is also a portrait of a significant
artist, a reassessment of whose work is long overdue
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