William Hogarth is a household name across the country, his prints hang in our pubs and leap out from our history books. He painted the great and good but also the common people. His art is joyfully exuberant, 'carried away by a passion for the ridiculous', as Hazlitt said.

Jenny Uglow, acclaimed author of Elizabeth Gaskell, Nature's Engraver and In These Times, uncovers the man, but also the world he came from and the lives he depicted. He moved in the worlds of theatre, literature, journalism, and politics, and found subjects for his work across the entire spectrum of eighteenth-century London, from street scenes to drawing rooms, and from churches to gambling halls and prisons.

After years of striving as an engraver and painter, Hogarth achieved lasting fame with A Harlot's Progress and A Rake's Progress, but remained highly critical of the growing gap between the luxurious lifestyles of the ruling elite and the miserable poverty of the masses.

William Hogarth was an artist of flamboyant, overflowing imagination, a satirist with an unerring eye; a painter of vibrant color and tenderness; an ambitious professional who broke all the art-world taboos. Never satisfied, he aimed to excel at everything - from engraving to history painting - and an element of risk runs through his life.

Shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize, Hogarth: A Life and a World brings art history to life through the voices of Hogarth's own era. The result is an unforgettable portrait of a great artist and a proud, stubborn, humorous, vulnerable man.

Pages: 816, Dimensions: 15.4x15.4cm