Sue Brown – författare

This biography of Joseph Severn (1793-1879), the best known but most controversial of Keats's friends, is based on a mass of newly discovered information, much of it still in private hands. Severn accompanied the dying Keats to Italy, nursed him in Rome and reported on his last weeks there in a famous series of moving letters. After Keats's death in relative obscurity, Severn pressed hard for an early biography and a more fitting memorial in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.In the nineteenth century Severn's friendship with Keats was seen as a model of devoted masculine companionship and he was reburied by popular acclaim next to Keats in 1882. In the twentieth century, by contrast, he was denigrated as an unreliable, self-promoting witness. Sue Brown's book fills a major gap in studies of Keats and his circle. It reassesses Severn's character, friendship with Keats, and influence on the posthumous development of the poet's fame and provides new information on Keats's death.The significance of Severn's artistic career has previously been downplayed. This book offers the first full assessment of his work and of his turbulent spell as British Consul in Rome from 1860 to 1871. Keats was not Severn's only famous friend. For most of his adult life Severn was at the heart of the large, lively British community in Rome welcoming amongst others Gladstone, who became his most important patron, Ruskin, Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Turner, Samuel Palmer, David Wilkie, and many more. He maintained long friendships with Leigh Hunt, Mary Shelley, Charles Eastlake, Richard Monckton Milnes, amongst others, and enjoyed a rich family life.

A step-by-step guide to making paper lithography prints. This practical book explains how to use gum arabic to transfer a photocopied image without specialised equipment. It uses both hand-drawn and photographic images to show how paper lithography (or gum arabic transfer printing) is a quick and simple process that allows for creative experimentation on a range of surfaces. Packed with advice and ideas, it highlights this exciting, flexible and creative technique for artists and makers. Contains clear, detailed instructions to printing a lithographic transfer using a humble photocopy as a plate. Advice on how to incorporate the process as part of sketchbook, textile and etching practice, Ideas for more advanced multimedia applications and inspirational finished examples. Also includes tips for coping with common problems and warnings of pitfalls to be avoided.

Sue Brown is an artist inspired by nature as much as by process. Encounters with birds, activities on the allotment and the garden are recorded through sketchbook drawings and printmaking, capturing the beauty of the natural world. Learn how to collect items from nature and use them to print and collage a record. This book shares many of the techniques Sue Brown uses to record the natural environment: simple printmaking, cyanotype and botanical contact prints. Working with natural materials and processes is an excellent way to record walks, keep a journal of the development of a garden or a sketchbook marking the passing of the seasons.In this world we yearn to slow down, find space in our lives and re connect with nature, to that end we often look to the natural world to recharge. It is accepted that being in nature makes us feel physically and psychologically better, whether it is a long walk in the countryside, a stroll in a local park or sitting in a garden. As part of that connection with nature we record it through photographs, drawings or collecting leaves, feathers, stones, and shells. We like to bring the outside into our homes with collections and reminders of our experiences of the great outdoors.

Though Julia Wedgwood is still remembered as a commentator on the work of her uncle, Charles Darwin, and for her brief but intense friendship with Browning, her contemporary standing as a writer (“the thoughtful woman par excellence”) has been obscured as has her role in the pioneering days of women’s higher education and the first campaigns for female suffrage. Based on her extensive correspondence and unusually wide-ranging work, this biography unites the private person and the public writer. It also looks at her many relationships with leading Victorian cultural figures including not only Darwin and Browning but George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Harriet Martineau, Frances Power Cobbe, F. D. Maurice, Richard Hutton, Arthur Munby and the young E. M. Forster. It considers the challenges facing a single, deaf Victorian woman in establishing her own independent, but unconventional, life.

Though Julia Wedgwood is still remembered as a commentator on the work of her uncle, Charles Darwin, and for her brief but intense friendship with Browning, her contemporary standing as a writer (“the thoughtful woman par excellence”) has been obscured as has her role in the pioneering days of women’s higher education and the first campaigns for female suffrage. Based on her extensive correspondence and unusually wide-ranging work, this biography unites the private person and the public writer. It also looks at her many relationships with leading Victorian cultural figures including not only Darwin and Browning but George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Harriet Martineau, Frances Power Cobbe, F. D. Maurice, Richard Hutton, Arthur Munby and the young E. M. Forster. It considers the challenges facing a single, deaf Victorian woman in establishing her own independent, but unconventional, life.