This work explores English culture and its origins. It questions how it was that at the end of the 17th century, there was almost no native English tradition in painting, the theatre, music or publishing, yet by the end of the 18th century, England had one of Europe's richest cultures. The book blends details from little-known sources with a series of character portraits to present a picture of a flourishing culture. The reader meets figures from all strata of 18th-century English society including: the novelist Samuel Richardson; the engraver and political radical, Thomas Bewick; the composer John Marsh; Dr Johnson; Sancho, the Duke of Montagu's black footman; Anna Larpent, the censor of books and plays; and the mysterious poetic milkwoman of Bristol. The author introduces the chaos of a literary auction in a London coffee house, the endless scheming for funds and favour within the Royal Academy and the life of self-gratification led by the Dilettantes. He also explores how the revolutions in France and America led to political agitation among England's artists, a state of affairs that the British state viewed with increasing nervousness.