The popular ideal of the 'inspired' artist - beautiful, brooding and young - takes its form from portraits of the poets, writers and artists of the Romantic period. This group revolutionised English art and literature, transforming our understanding of creativity and the individual imagination. Richard Holmes's thought-provoking text explores the lives of Byron, Shelley, Keats and the circle that formed round Coleridge and Wordsworth in the early nineteenth century.