About the Author

Devon Cox is a cultural historian and playwright. Originally from Chicago, he moved to London in 2006 and worked in UK Business Development for Sotheby's. He has previously worked on researching and copy-editing two books for James Stourton, Chairman of Sotheby's, The British as Art Collectors (Scala, 2012) and Great Houses of London (Frances Lincoln, 2012). This is his first book.

Reviews

'Devon Cox’s beautifully written book is not only a scholarly and entertaining description of a vanished world but also a valuable work of reference.'

‘Cox bounces back and forth across Tite Street, rallying his subjects like characters in a high-class soap opera... an assured and dazzling debut.'

'This is a well-researched, and eminently readable biography of one street in London, whose occupants make up a dramatis personae of outstanding talent over a period of 120 years... The result, with a red ribbon tastefully tied around it, would make a lovely box of chocolates.' 

'This exceptionally handsome and well-illustrated book - a biography of the street, its residents and their connections - elucidates some of those possibilities. And pretty wonderful they are too.'' A well-informed, nicely produced and generously illustrated book about Title Street in merrier, cheaper times, when it could claim to be the epicentre of art in England.'' This colourful account reanimates the street and affirms its cultural importance.''This is a well-researched, and eminently readable biography of one street in London, whose occupants make up a dramatis personae of outstanding talent over a period of 120 years... The result, with a red ribbon tastefully tied around it, would make a lovely box of chocolates.' 'Well-researched and highly readable book.''This book is a fascinating and absorbing record of a time when Chelsea was at the edge of avant-garde.' 'This is much more than a coffee-table effort. It gives a fascinating, street-level perspective on a period when art mattered to high society, when jobbing architects could marry royal mistresses and when a penniless Italian caricaturist could find himself dining at Buckingham Palace.'' This beautifully illustrated history of London's answer to the Left Bank would make a wonderful present for art lovers.'‘Cox has done an admirable job of marshalling his material...The books is well populated with the voices of its protagonists and their critics, lending it a rich anecdotal texture and allowing the great egos of Tite Street to speak for themselves. “Mighty swells dwell here,” wrote the American author Benjamin Ellis Martin in 1889, “and here pose some famous farceurs in art and literature.”’ 'Richly anecdotal.'‘a fascinating, entertaining, well researched book… highly recommended.’'This street became centre of London's fin-de-siecle art scene, which the historian Devon Cox has made the basis of an engrossing, detailed and somewhat melancholy group biography. Three titans of the era naturally dominate its pages, though in the background swells a lively and ever-changing cast of artists major and minor, muses, models, critics, princes and paupers, actors, rent boys, property speculators and assorted other villains.' ‘A beautifully illustrated cultural biography.’‘This is an extraordinarily well-conceived, structured and produced book with all the pictures you could want, where you want them… An important book.’‘Cox bounces back and forth across Tite Street, rallying his subjects like characters in a high-class soap opera... an assured and dazzling debut.''Devon Cox’s beautifully written book is not only a scholarly and entertaining description of a vanished world but also a valuable work of reference.'