For a few brief years there was intrepid courage with high ambition，with cheerfulness，with friendship; and then，all of a sudden，death came，and one more youthful reputation began to fade into the dead and crumbled past.

In these canvases，I think，the spirit of Keats is expressed as it has never been expressed before-Keats in his love of beauty and in his love of colour，Keats in his power of vision and in his delight in dream，Keats in his poetic spirituality.

First，it seems to me that the claims of William Stott cannot be overlooked.He has painted several masterpieces，which it does not fall to the lot of many painters to achieve in a lifetime...His 'Wood Nymph' is a picture for the National Gallery.He gets little recognition.

William Stott，son of an Oldham mill owner，left for Paris in 1878，at the age of twenty，to train with the classical French painter Jean-Leon Gerome.Adopting a Realist style of painting，he achieved rapid success，being medalled at the Paris Salon in 1882 for his painting The Bathing Place (Munich).He quickly became a hero figure among the British and American artists in Paris and was an influential member of the international colony of artists at Grez-sur-Loing，near Paris.In 1889 he had a one-man exhibition at Durand-Ruel's gallery in Paris.On returning to England he became a follower and close friend of James McNeill Whistler，until his painting of Whistler's mistress，Maud Franklin，depicted naked as Venus born of the Sea Foam (Oldham Art Gallery)，caused a rift between them.In his latter years he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy，mainly highly decorative works depicting scenes from mythology.He died in 1900 at the age of forty-two while on a sea-crossing to Ireland.

This book reveals an interesting and important artist whose best work has hardly been seen in public，and has hitherto never been photographed or published in colour.His pastels of Alpine peaks and glaciers，of torrents，of the sea，of beaches and of the simple countryside round his home in the village of Ravenglass in Cumbria will be a revelation，and the reconstruction of his career here achieved by Roger Brown is a significant contribution to the study of Symbolism and Impressionism.

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Preface

William Stott of Oldham

 1 A Comet rushing to the Sun

 2 In the Steps of the Master

 3 The Escape from Reality

 4 In Memoriam

Catalogue

Appendices

Index