The Anglo-American artist James McNeill Whistler is a household name - a man who inspired and astonished the Victorian world. Less well known, though, is the influence of nature on Whistler's work. This innovative and compelling study reconsiders Whistler's work from the context of his military service and his relationship with "nature at the margins", showing how Whistler's observation of nature and its moods underpinned his haunting visions of nineteenth-century life.