Unlike some of the gardeners and scientists of his time, George Maw isn’t a household name today. A passionate botanist, geologist, ceramicist and artist, Maw corresponded with the likes of Charles Da

A letter, a book and two paintings by Tracey Emin; right, Ruth Fairlight’s copy of The Colossus Ruth Fainlight and Alan Sillitoe were both in their twenties when they met in a bookshop in Nottingham.

Last April, a surprising photograph (see near right) appeared on the Wikipedia page devoted to Jeanne Duval, the long-term mistress of Charles Baudelaire and the “Black Venus” who inspired some of the

Georges Seurat spent much of his short life painting the quietude of the Northern French coast, honing his rigorous technique on the play of light, sky and water

Twenty six years ago, Italian writer and gardener Umberto Pasti fell asleep beneath a remote fig tree on a stony hillside facing the Atlantic Ocean, 40 miles south of Tangier. When he awoke, he knew t

The garden of Penns in the Rocks, near Tunbridge Wells, East Sussex The home of Hugh and Frances Gibson