He stood in a severe-looking suit against the background of a brown stage.

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The work's plain and often silken take on Baroque-era dance aesthetics came with an apt scrawl in the background, an enlargement of one of Ms. Brown's own drawings.

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The UK and US covers differ, however both feature an image of the Italian poet Dante - whom Brown said inspired his latest work - and are set against a background of the city of Florence.

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Next, say his admirers, and Mr Brown himself, he is a man of strong values, derived from his Presbyterian background.

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