Kelly Grovier was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles and at Oxford University, where he wrote his doctorate on the eighteenth-century philosopher and adventurer 'Walking' Stewart. He is the author of A lens in the palm (Carcanet, January 2008) and a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement and the Observer. He is the co-founder of the scholarly journal European Romantic Review and a lecturer at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.