The legend of James Whistler is that of both a brilliantly eccentric butterfly whose wit pulverized every philistine within range and a painter whose stance and work were examples of sophistication and modernism triumphing over the dullards of his time. Yet even without the legend Whistler's life was a remarkable one. Using Whistler's own letters and other primary sources, Roy McMullen brings to life Whistler's years as a Bohemian on the Paris Left Bank, his affairs with his Irish and English mistresses, his encounters with men like Carlyle, Ruskin, Beardsley and Wilde, his immediate and violent passions for oriental art, for travel to mysterious places, his marriage at the age of fifty-four, the growth of his international reputation and the sad last years as a sardonic, eccentric celebrity and lonely widower. -- From publisher's description.