JAN MARSH

Jan Marshs book is the best researched and fullest biography of Rossetti we have yet had. Fiona MacCarthy, New York Review of BooksAlthough never formally part of the Pre-Raphaelite poetic school, which included her brother Gabriel, William Morris, and Algernon Swinburne, Christina Rossetti has always been linked to it. [Jan Marsh] gives full attention to both the individual and her unique variety of fantastic and devotional poetry... Marsh delineates an appealing person while examining her adolescent nervous breakdown, abortive engagement to a lapsed Catholic painter, frustrated love for an absentminded scholar, and relationships with her devout but hearty sister, Maria, and with her brothers... The authors steady, sympathetic course through Rossettis divided life enables readers to delve into the intense and original self most fully expressed in her poetry.Kirkus Review

The story of how a group of precocious young artists shook up the British art establishment, told through their works, letters and diaries. An illustrated history of the linked lives and loves of a group of supremely talented artists of late Victorian Britain through their passionate writings. It features the painters, poets, critics and designers: Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Fanny Cornforth, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, William and Janey Morris, Christina, Dante Gabriel, and William Rossetti, John Ruskin, William Bell Scott and Lizzie Siddal.The artistic aspirations and achievements of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood are revealed alongside the interwoven dramas of their personal lives, in letters, diaries and reminiscences, while their genius is displayed in vivid paintings, drawings, designs and poems. The Pre-Raphaelites was a charmed circles of love, friendship and art. Within an ever-changing flow of affections, and intimacies as richly patterned as a tapestry, they worked together as companions, lovers and partners. They shared tragedy as well as happiness, critical hostility as well as success, even the griefs of infidelity and discord. These creative partnerships, which also created the firm William Morris and Co, revitalised Victorian art and design. The new edition publishes in time for the start of the Burne Jones Exhibition at Tate Britain, starting in October 18. It is a vital book in understanding the Pre-Raphaelite art, which remains as popular and moving as ever.