MARVELS: The Life of Clarence Bicknell, Botanist, Archaeologist, Artist. Book by Valerie Lester

A treasure trove of research discoveries enlightens Valerie Lester’s biography of the captivating scientist and artist, Clarence Bicknell. Over 5 years, Lester pored over hundreds of newly-discovered letters, botanical watercolours and arts-and-crafts designs in archives including the Natural History Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Conservatoire Botanique in Geneva and Genoa University. Every letter and diary entry provides Lester with Clarence’s voice; and each of his vellum-bound albums reveals drawings, watercolours and whimsical creations. The book’s text, supported by more than 200 images, gives remarkable insights into how and why this man strove for perfection in each subject he tackled.

Valerie Lester was an independent scholar, writer, and translator living near Boston (read more). She wrote Fasten Your Seat Belts! History and Heroism in the Pan Am Cabin (1995), Phiz, The Man Who Drew Dickens (2004), Giambattista Bodoni: His Life and His World (2015) and has translated Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes with the title The Magnificent Meaulnes (2009).

Published by Matador Books on  28 June 2018. Distributor: Orca Book Services. Tel: 01235 465521. Thema subject category : AGNB – Botanical art. Hardback 260 x 185 mm 256 pp Portrait. 212 images, full colour throughout. ISBN 9781789014945. Matador is an imprint of Troubador Books. Available to purchase on Amazon, eBay and here on www.clarencebicknell.com/shop

Praise for Marvels: The Life of Clarence Bicknell

Rich in information and unpublished sources that enhance our knowledge of the great Clarence Bicknell and the history of Bordighera. (Gisella Merello Folli)
Marvels – The Life of Clarence Bicknell is a fantastic book. The abundance of wealth in the text, the beautiful layout, the multitude of images; life’s very perfume rises from the pages. (Giuseppe Bessone)
A hugely readable book and a wonderful vignette on Victorian life. (Carolyn Hanbury)
Lester brings her marvellous energy and vision to life, and the copious beautiful illustrations vividly express Bicknell’s wonder at the world’s riches. It all adds up to a superlatively exhilarating reading experience. (Robert L. Patten)
Through its pages, rich in unpublished sources and documents, we rediscover the greatness of Clarence, his exceptional, empathetic and brilliant life and the current strength of his work. (Daniela Gandolfi)
This is a delightful book, well-written and researched, copiously illustrated, drawing on family and museum archives and showing Clarence’s beautiful botanical drawings. (Selby Whittingham)
The book is in itself a vibrant watercolour of European culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries . . . a volume rich in information and ideas for reflections. (Mauro Mariotti)
Valerie Lester once again brings to life an extraordinary figure from the past, the compelling Clarence Bicknell (1842–1918), whose lifelong curiosity and abundant energy carried him from religion and philosophy to botany, archaeology and the exploration of faraway places. An accomplished author and painter, Bicknell spent much of his adult life in Bordighera and the hills of the Italian Riviera. Lester describes Bicknell’s active life in vivid detail, giving her readers a sense of his sweet disposition and drive to discover, and a good taste of the places and time in which he lived. Filled with photographs and drawings that enrich the narrative, this is a wonderful book. (Bruce Kennett, author of W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design)