Ronald Paulson is Mayer Professor of Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University. He is Hogarth's foremost biographer and is a noted critic of 18th Century art and literature. The publication of his biography helped gain recognition for Hogarth as a central figure in British art and culture.

This is an astonishing book, and I don't know when I last read anything on the 18th century from which I learned as much. It is a quite remarkably full chronicle of Hogarth's life, based on the exhaustive information Paulson has exhumed from manuscript records, from newspapers, and from the writings of his contemporaries [...]. Nothing so ambitious has been attempted for any other British artist of the period, and no one else would have the range of learning necessary to make the attempt.

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceFrom the Preface of the Frist Edition1.Shades of the Prison House: A London Childhood, 1697-17142."The Monsters of Heraldry": Apprenticeship and the Profession of Engraver, 1714-17203."The Bad Taste of the Town," 1720-17244.A Native English History Painting: Thornhill and the "English Don Quixote," Hudibras, 1720-17265.Learning to Paint: Falstaff and The Beggar's Opera, 1727-17296.Contemporary History and Marriage, 17297.Conversation Pictures, 1728-17328.The "Modern Moral Subject": A Harlot's Progress, 1730-17329.Contexts (Visual and Verbal) for the Harlot10.Publication, Reception, and Significance of the HarlotNotesGeneral IndexIndex of Hogarth's Works

Ronald Paulson is Mayer Professor of Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University. He is Hogarth's foremost biographer and is a noted critic of 18th Century art and literature. The publication of his biography helped gain recognition for Hogarth as a central figure in British art and culture.

This is an astonishing book, and I don't know when I last read anything on the 18th century from which I learned as much. It is a quite remarkably full chronicle of Hogarth's life, based on the exhaustive information Paulson has exhumed from manuscript records, from newspapers, and from the writings of his contemporaries [...]. Nothing so ambitious has been attempted for any other British artist of the period, and no one else would have the range of learning necessary to make the attempt.

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceFrom the Preface of the Frist Edition1.Shades of the Prison House: A London Childhood, 1697-17142."The Monsters of Heraldry": Apprenticeship and the Profession of Engraver, 1714-17203."The Bad Taste of the Town," 1720-17244.A Native English History Painting: Thornhill and the "English Don Quixote," Hudibras, 1720-17265.Learning to Paint: Falstaff and The Beggar's Opera, 1727-17296.Contemporary History and Marriage, 17297.Conversation Pictures, 1728-17328.The "Modern Moral Subject": A Harlot's Progress, 1730-17329.Contexts (Visual and Verbal) for the Harlot10.Publication, Reception, and Significance of the HarlotNotesGeneral IndexIndex of Hogarth's Works