This unusual dual biography is set in London, Paris, New York, Sydney, Rome, Pau, Biarritz, and San Remo. It contains painters and poets, heroes and stunners, childbirth, deathbeds, the Victorian postal service, a fragment of Shelley's skull, Dante's Inferno, Italy, zoos, gout, office life, séances and the 'Living Magnet', Walt Whitman, Holman Hunt's chest, a Dancing Faun, continental railways, Whistler's litigiousness, Japanese swords, owls, earthquakes, the 'Balliol bugger', Garibaldi, Leopardi, wombats and the first Venice Biennale.
The marriage of William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) and Lucy Madox Brown (1843-1894) united two of the most resonant Pre-Raphaelite family names. Their passionate and ultimately tragic relationship - described here for the first time - provides a fresh perspective on nineteenth-century marriage and on the private lives of eminent Victorians.
Sibling of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, William was one of the original Pre-Raphaelite 'Brothers', a Bohemian, radical author, poet, critic, artist, connoisseur, biographer, historian, and taxman. Lucy, the intense, intellectual daughter of Ford Madox Brown, was an ambitious artist and biographer of Mary Shelley, despite struggling with tuberculosis for nearly a decade. Drawing on hundreds of previously unpublished sources and a wealth of new visual material (including art by William, Lucy and others of their circle, as well as striking contemporary photographs), the book follows William and Lucy through their separate professional careers, marriage, continental travels and Lucy's illness and death. At the crossover between art history, literary criticism, social history and biography, this book rewrites Pre-Raphaelite history and brings to life two fascinating people who were both of their time and ahead of it.
The marriage of William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) and Lucy Madox Brown (1843-1894) united two of the most resonant Pre-Raphaelite family names. Their passionate and ultimately tragic relationship - described here for the first time - provides a fresh perspective on nineteenth-century marriage and on the private lives of eminent Victorians.
Sibling of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, William was one of the original Pre-Raphaelite 'Brothers', a Bohemian, radical author, poet, critic, artist, connoisseur, biographer, historian, and taxman. Lucy, the intense, intellectual daughter of Ford Madox Brown, was an ambitious artist and biographer of Mary Shelley, despite struggling with tuberculosis for nearly a decade. Drawing on hundreds of previously unpublished sources and a wealth of new visual material (including art by William, Lucy and others of their circle, as well as striking contemporary photographs), the book follows William and Lucy through their separate professional careers, marriage, continental travels and Lucy's illness and death. At the crossover between art history, literary criticism, social history and biography, this book rewrites Pre-Raphaelite history and brings to life two fascinating people who were both of their time and ahead of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment