Shortlisted for the Biographers’ Club HW Fisher Best First Biography Prize
‘One of those rare biographies which is a work of literature: beautifully written, overwhelmingly moving. A great art critic, with an understanding of the human heart, has produced this masterpiece. It is one of the best biographies I have ever read of anyone: it captures the tragedy of Palmer’s life, and brings out the shimmering glory, the iridescent secrets of his Shoreham phase’ A.N. Wilson Spectator
‘She tells in detail the story of his long and often sad personal life, skilfully interweaving it with the many changes in his professional interests and outlook, and in the process illuminating hitherto obscure aspects of his career. Th is is a valuable study ... excellent’ Literary Review
‘The neglected artist Samuel Palmer is well served by this richly perceptive life’ Sunday Times
‘Triumphantly captures such ardent early Victorian piety with a vividness and an energy that carry the reader to the luminous heart of Palmer’s work … Campbell-Johnston deploys her talent as an art critic to delineate the technical as well as philosophical progressiveness of Palmer’s work, yet the figure who emerges from Mysterious Wisdomis too exuberant and vivid for tragedy. He strides from the pages, as warm and tenderly eccentric as the paintings from his “Curiosity Portfolio”’ Times Literary Supplement
‘The compelling strangeness of Campbell-Johnston’s book, however, is that it doesn’t depend on a claim to Palmer’s artistic greatness. Rather, it’s carried by the almost shockingly polarised light and shadow of his life’ Daily Telegraph
‘A brilliantly written book. Rachel Campbell-Johnston brings a novelist’s eye to the life of Palmer’ John Wilson, Front Row
‘[A] vivid new portrait’ Evening Standard
‘Excellent … A hugely remarkable story engagingly told’ Sunday Times Ireland
‘This gentle, sympathetic book will encourage people to discover a visionary’ Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
‘Yet if Palmer doesn’t quite live up to our expectations of the Romantic artist, the close society the author describes is as rich in detail as his paintings and vivid with the life of its personalities, the now neglected first movement in Britain, The Ancients’ **** Metro