A study of the paintings of Leeds artist Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93) whose images of wet streets, bare branches on winter afternoons, moon-lit nights and gaslit docksides are well known. The author assesses the artist's place in Victorian art and society and compares him with his contemporaries such as Tissot and Alma-Tadema. Some of Grimshaw's paintings which are normally in private collections are reproduced here for the first time.