A child of the Victorian age, Algernon Charles Swinburne was its severest critic. He grew to become a figurehead of rebellion and modernity in the literature of the later nineteenth century, his verse proclaiming a revolution in the political affairs of Europe as well as in poetry and morals. He outraged bourgeois sensibilities with his vigorous, colorful, and frankly sensual verse. In this biography, Donald Thomas vividly portrays Swinburne as the fiery, brandy-inspired orator of his youth - a visible and striking symbol of the new order - and also as the meek versifier of his later years. Thomas succeeds in drawing an absorbing and lively picture not only of Swinburne the poet but also of the man and the world in which he lived.