Henry Fuseli's work has always been the subject of speculation, gossip and fantasy, from the rumours of his opium addiction and his predilection for eating raw pork, to modern views of him variously as a prime exponent of Neoclassicism, a Romantic before his time, or an aberrant individualist pre-empting the innovations of Surrealism. This title offers an interpretation of the artist, placing him firmly in the context of a period of traumatic social, cultural and political revolution. A series of thematic chapters explore the successive phases of his career, from his early work in London, to his old age, the period of his greatest professional success when he exerted a profound influence on a whole generation of younger British artists.