Theodore Watts-Dunton
(1832-1914), Critic, novelist and poetSitter in 3 portraits
Watts studied law and practiced in London, but his real interest was literature. He contributed regularly to the Examiner and was the chief poetry reviewer of the Athenaeum where he enjoyed a great (anonymous) reputation from 1876 to 1902. In 1898, Watts-Dunton published a successful novel, Aylwin, a romance that contained a fictional portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his circle. His other published works include the novel Vesprie Towers (1916) and a book of poems, The Coming of Love (1897). He is best known for his friendship with Algernon Swinburne whom he looked after for almost thirty years following his collapse in 1879.
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by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
pastel, 1874
NPG 4888
Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Theodore Watts-Dunton
by Henry Treffry Dunn
gouache and watercolour, 1882
NPG 3022
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