The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough

Once described as “brilliant but eccentric . . . too licentious to be published,” Gainsborough’s letters delighted his friends and they delight us. This book gathers together all the known letters by the illustrious eighteenth-century British painter and connects them with a narrative of Gainsborough’s life that gives the correspondence a biographical coherence.

The letters reveal a man who was generous and warm-hearted, devoted to his family and friends, convivial, often dissipated yet mode...