A Thing of Beauty Author:A J Cronin Dr. Cronin writes: "For many years I have felt with passionate intensity the theme which is the underlying structure of A Thing of Beauty- the struggle, so often hopeless, of the artist to attain lifetime recognition in a purely materialistic universe... — "While it is difficult for an author to appraise his own work, I can say in all honesty tha... more »t this book, more than any other, was written from the heart. There hangs in my study a supremely beautiful painting. It is the first picture I ever bought, at a cost infinitely less than others which subsequently came into my collection. Yet, amongst them all, I regard it as the most precious. The painter, a young Englishman, full of talent, whom I knew and loved, found life too difficult-he committed suicide at the age of twenty-seven. He is not Stephen Desmonde, but his painting is the genesis, the inspiration, of A Thing of Beauty."« less