Biography can prove a murky pursuit. The subject's mind, as well as private life, is often invaded. Robin Blake's engaging George Stubbs and the Wide Creation (Chatto) is meticulous, exhaustively detailed, colourful and honourable.

Although attempting to track down the mystery mother of Stubbs's four children, Blake the detective never overpowers Blake the gentleman art critic and social historian. Stubbs emerges as a remarkable man by virtue of his committed artistic genius.

This cohesive study triumphs as informed social history, exploring the political, artistic and cultural nuances that shaped Stubbs's Georgian world, and ultimately his life.

Classical Rome, Edmund Burke, Laurence Sterne's comic masterpiece Tristram Shandy, aristocrats, various painters (including the impoverished Irish artist, James Barry), English rural life across the classes, and London itself - all feature in an impressively readable, old-style account graced with good-natured intelligence. EB