mad jack: The many lives of
john fuller, squire of brightling
by Annette Lloyd Thomas
Almost two hundred years after his death, John ‘Mad Jack’ Fuller is mostly remembered as a typical English eccentric: a wealthy eighteenth-century squire who built whimsical follies around his Sussex estate. Local legend has it that Mad Jack sits inside his mysterious pyramid tomb at a table set with a roast chicken and a bottle of port. Curious stories such as this overshadow Fuller’s philanthropy and patronage of the arts and sciences, while his arrest in the House of Commons is better known than the details of his long political career.
Canadian historian Annette Lloyd Thomas’s fascination with Fuller began with a visit to Sussex, the county of her birth, in 1990. Thirty years later, with a mass of careful investigative research under her belt, she decided that it was time to gather her findings into a book that would delve beneath the myths and tall tales to examine Fuller’s life more closely.
Our collaboration with Annette involved helping her select and organise her findings, to tease out the key themes and find suitable visual materials. The book’s development involved piecing together a family tree and tracking down designer’s drawings for Fuller’s building projects as well as family portraits and other works of art that Fuller had once owned. Special watercolours were commissioned for each of the follies, along with an accompanying map showing their locations, printed on the endpapers. The result is a beautiful 288-page cloth-covered illustrated hardback with extensive footnotes and further reading list.
“Writing my first book was a somewhat daunting proposition. I quickly realised how much I didn’t know about the ins and outs of publishing. Thankfully, the Otherwise team guided me through the entire process. I am grateful for their discernment, encouragement and commitment to keeping the author’s voice central during the editing stage. I am thrilled with the resulting book.”
