Jean Gould's study of Homer's slow, patient, at times painful rise to fame is not the first biography of him and there are a number of books dealing with his technique and style. But this may have considerably more appeal for the general reading audience who have seen and enjoyed samples of the artist's work. It traces his early experience as a lithographer's apprentice, his task of reporting the Civil War in a series of on-the-spot sketches and the development of his philosophy as an exponent of interpreted realism in the Italian verismo.