Home About the author   Words and pictures: (p.4) Woman in White (p.7) Stanley Spencer (p.31) Augustus John (p.41) Cranach 's Eve (p.140) Gainsborough (p.166) Mrs Dalloway (p.188) Lucio Fontana (p.264) Gwen John  Publisher and agent

After Anjelica (detail)        'He had set a scene from the Bible in an ordinary cottage garden. It was, art critics would observe, an inspiring example of the genre in which Spencer excelled, of a spiritual subject painted in an earthy – earthly – style.' (p. 7)  Stanley Spencer (1891–1959), Zachariah and Elizabeth, 1913–14       © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2009. All rights reserved DACS. Image © Tate, London 2009 For many years Zachariah and Elizabeth illuminated the living room of a private house in north-west London. The painting in the novel is entirely fictional.