This two‎-volume biography of the sixteenth‎-century French potter and natural scientist Bernard Palissy ‎(‎c‎.‎1510‎-c‎.‎1590‎)‎ was published in 1852‎,‎ the year after the Great Exhibition‎,‎ in which Palissy‎'‎s extraordinary art had been brought before the Victorian public by Minton‎'‎s highly decorated ‎'‎Palissy wares‎'‎‎.‎ Henry Morley ‎(‎1822‎-94‎)‎ trained in medicine but later became an author and editor‎,‎ writing for Charles Dickens among others‎.‎ Here he gathers together all the material then available about Palissy‎,‎ including the potter‎'‎s own writings and a contemporary biography‎.‎ Palissy was among the many European ceramicists who attempted to reproduce Chinese porcelain‎;‎ his lack of success drove his family into poverty‎,‎ but his highly ornamented wares‎,‎ encrusted with sea creatures‎,‎ came to the attention of Catherine de‎'‎ Medici‎,‎ who gave him her patronage and protection ‎(‎he was a convinced Protestant‎)‎‎.‎ After her death he was sent to the Bastille‎,‎ and died there‎.‎