Angela Thirlwell

Angela Thirlwell explores the fictitious life and the many after-lives of Rosalind, Shakespeare's progressive new heroine, and her perennial influence on drama, fiction and art. The book ranges widely across Tudor history, theatre history, sexual politics, autobiography, art history and filmography. This highly original 'biography' of Rosalind - Shakespeare's greatest female creation - contains exclusive new interviews with Juliet Rylance, Sally Scott, Janet Suzman, Juliet Stevenson, Michelle Terry, award-winning director Blanche McIntyre, as well as insights from Michael Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Greg Doran, Rebecca Hall, Adrian Lester, Pippa Nixon, Vanessa Redgrave and Fiona Shaw.

"Ford Madox Brown: The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite" is a major volume which throws new light on this important artist, who though never officially a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was however a central figure within it. The Madox Brown collection at Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery ranges in date from the early 1840s to the 1890s and includes sketch and study drawings, watercolours, stained glass designs, wood engravings as well as paintings and archive material. This volume includes three essays by leading Madox Brown specialists. The first, by Angela Thirlwell, sets his works in the context of his life. The second, by Tim Barringer, studies the difficulty of categorising Madox Brown's work, and the final essay, by Laura MacCulloch, looks specifically at Madox Brown's illustrations. This volume illustrates 42 selected drawings and works on paper, accompanied by an entry, including full specifications, provenance, inscriptions and an extended caption.