Joseph Gandy's life is the classic story of genius unrecognized. When he died he seemed to the world, and to himself, a failure. Having begun his career with high hopes, ideals, imagination, and talent, he ended it miserable, poor, and confined in a lunatic asylum.

That was in 1843. A century and a half later he is considered one of the most original figures of English Romanticism. In his own eyes he was an architect, fit to stand beside the great masters of Neoclassicism, but he was hopelessly impractical. Hardly any of his buildings were built, and he could realize his ambitions only graphically as the draftsman who presented Sir John Soane's monumental schemes to the public, as a gifted historical artist who could bring the great age of Gothic to life for John Britton's Architectural Antiquities, and as a visionary comparable to William Blake who could give compelling reality to ancient legend, medieval myth, and Renaissance romance. Works such as his unearthly Rosslyn Chapel or his luminous Tomb of Merlin have a hypnotic power that no other artist could surpass.

The life of Joseph Gandy is a tragic story, though a curiously inspiring one, and a significant episode in the history of Western art. 203 illustrations, 49 in color.