William Stott was an exceptionally talented artist of the later nineteenth century who won several medals in Paris Salons. The son of an Oldham millowner, he studied art in Paris and was an influential member of the artists' colony at Grez-sur-Loing (full of English, Irish, Scottish, and American artists). In 1889 he held a one-man show at the Durand-Ruel Gallery, famous for its showing of the French Impressionists. On his return to England he became a follower and close friend of Whistler, until his painting of Whistler's mistress depicted naked as Venus Born of the Sea Foam caused a rift between them. He was one of the first English artists to take up Symbolism rather than to follow merely in the path of naturalism and Impressionism. He adapted his style to exhibit in the Royal Academy and should have been on the brink of great success when he died suddenly, aged forty-two, in 1900. This is the first book on this interesting artist.