Susan Owens Knihy

A lyrical, critically acclaimed account of the British landscape in writing and art from Beowulf to now.

"The Story of Drawing" explores the fundamental role of drawing in human creativity, tracing its evolution from prehistoric times to modern artists like Van Gogh and Yayoi Kusama. Susan Owens provides insights into the creative processes of renowned artists, highlighting drawing's unique freedom compared to other art forms.

Now in paperback, this is a new cultural history of the ghost—one of the most popular and pervasive subjects worldwide. Spanning from the medieval period to today, the book includes a wide range of artists and writers, including Hogarth, Blake, Rossetti, Shakespeare, Pepys, Shelley, and Dickens. Contemporary figures such as Muriel Spark, Hilary Mantel, and Jeremy Deller are also featured. The enduring popularity of ghosts in literature, art, folklore, and film attests to their continuing power to fascinate, terrify, and inspire. Our conceptions of ghosts—the fears they provoke, the forms they take—are connected to the conventions and beliefs of each particular era, from the marauding undead of the Middle Ages to the psychologically charged presences of our own age.

Imagining England's Past explores England's national myths, from the glamorous to the disturbing, and from the eighth century to the present day.