Rosemary Ashton is Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London. She is the author of acclaimed critical biographies of Coleridge, George Henry Lewes and George Eliot and Thomas and Jane Carlyle: Portrait of a Marriage.

"This is a portrait skilfully drawn in the round...brilliantly captured" -- Rosemary Hill Sunday Times "Wonderfully researched and absorbing account" -- Philip Hoare Observer "Rosemary Ashton tells his story [John Chapman's] with both aplomb and scholarship. Anyone wanting to deepen their knowledge of London's intellectual life at this time will find her book indispensable" -- Simon Heffer Spectator "Rivetingly entertaining" -- AN Wilson Observer, Books of the Year "On the intellectual debates...that exercised these characters she is excellent, describing books and linking ideas with panache. There are, too, many moments when the story of 142 Strand comes very vividly to life" -- Matthew Sturgis Sunday Telegraph

Rosemary Ashton is Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London. She is the author of acclaimed critical biographies of Coleridge, George Henry Lewes and George Eliot and Thomas and Jane Carlyle: Portrait of a Marriage.

"This is a portrait skilfully drawn in the round...brilliantly captured" -- Rosemary Hill Sunday Times "Wonderfully researched and absorbing account" -- Philip Hoare Observer "Rosemary Ashton tells his story [John Chapman's] with both aplomb and scholarship. Anyone wanting to deepen their knowledge of London's intellectual life at this time will find her book indispensable" -- Simon Heffer Spectator "Rivetingly entertaining" -- AN Wilson Observer, Books of the Year "On the intellectual debates...that exercised these characters she is excellent, describing books and linking ideas with panache. There are, too, many moments when the story of 142 Strand comes very vividly to life" -- Matthew Sturgis Sunday Telegraph

Rosemary Ashton is Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London. She is the author of acclaimed critical biographies of Coleridge, George Henry Lewes and George Eliot and Thomas and Jane Carlyle: Portrait of a Marriage.

"This is a portrait skilfully drawn in the round...brilliantly captured" -- Rosemary Hill Sunday Times "Wonderfully researched and absorbing account" -- Philip Hoare Observer "Rosemary Ashton tells his story [John Chapman's] with both aplomb and scholarship. Anyone wanting to deepen their knowledge of London's intellectual life at this time will find her book indispensable" -- Simon Heffer Spectator "Rivetingly entertaining" -- AN Wilson Observer, Books of the Year "On the intellectual debates...that exercised these characters she is excellent, describing books and linking ideas with panache. There are, too, many moments when the story of 142 Strand comes very vividly to life" -- Matthew Sturgis Sunday Telegraph