A meditation on the art of biography by a master of the genre. Ranging widely over art, science and poetry, Richard Holmes confesses to a lifetime's obsession with his Romantic subjects - a pursuit and pilgrimage that takes him across three centuries, through much of Europe and into the lively company of many earlier biographers.

In the final episode, he charts how William Blake, who died "a forgotten man" in 1827, was resurrected. The versions of this poet and mystic philosopher that have been created since his death are testament to the enduring art and power of biography.

Richard Holmes was born in 1945 and is an award-wining British author best-known for his biographical studies of major figures of British and French Romanticism. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia (2001-2007) and has honorary doctorates from UEA, University of East London, University of Kingston and the Tavistock Institute. In 1992 he was awarded the OBE and, in 2014, the Biographers' Club Lifetime Services to Biography Prize. He lives in London and Norfolk with his wife, British novelist Rose Tremain.

Written by Richard Holmes
Read by Patrick Malahide
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4. Show less