John Minton was an artist, a Bohemian and, in his own lifetime, a myth: "the embodiment and symbol", according to one of his contemporaries, "of a particular decade of London life and London painting". During the 1940s and early 1950s he became a well-known figure in Soho, and an intimate friend of, among many others, Michael Ayrton, Robert Colquhoun, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. This biography by Frances Spalding, the author of the biographies of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell and Stevie Smith, makes use of hitherto unpublished sources, including letters and articles by Minton himself, as well as countless interviews with the artist's friends and acquaintances. Since the revival of interest in British neo-romanticism Minton's reputation has been very much in the ascendant and he is steadily emerging as one of the most fascinating artists of his generation.