The Pornographer of Vienna tells the life story of Egon Schiele, the infamous Austrian painter famed for his sexually explicit portraits of the underbelly of Viennese life in the dying years of the Habsburg empire.

The book recounts how Schiele is persecuted by his family, imprisoned by the Habsburg authorities and forced into poverty by an unappreciative art world. Schiele finally finds acclaim with those who had earlier shunned him, before dying tragically a few days short of the end of the Great War. This novel inspired by Schiele's twisted and perverse life charts the ascent and demise of Austria's most decadent and most misunderstood painter.

Based on and inspired by the the short and intense life of the famous Austrian painter, Egon Schiele, this is a brilliantly imagined novel which will enlighten and delight anyone interested in his mesmerizing art. Schiele is portrayed here as a young hedonist with a burning talent, reflected in the raw, provocative sexuality of his paintings and drawings.

The book stays true to historical context and his characters' life stories while also imagining what might have been. The story of Schiele's creative genius is told in the context of portraying his city, Vienna, before World War I, and providing a startling insight into the lives of artists in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time.

(Summary courtesy of Amazon.co.uk)