'Blessing in Disguise' by Arthur Hughes. First published in 'Sunday Magazine'(1869)

A Passing Cloud, Arthur Hughes

The Rescue. Arthur Hughes

"Ophelia" - Arthur Hughes (1865)

Arthur Hughes, Enid and Geraint

Arthur Hughes, The Enchantress

Arthur Hughes, Forget Me Not

Speaking Likenesses

http://archive.org/stream/speakinglikenes00hughgoog#page/n4/mode/2up

Alice fans might be interested in checking out Christina Rossetti’s longest work for children, Speaking Likenesses, which was published in 1874, three years after Through the Looking-Glass. It’s no secret that Charles Dodgson was friends with the Rossetti family (he even photographed them), and the influence of Alice on Speaking Likenesses is clear. Rossetti herself even acknowledged the Alice books as an inspiration in a letter to her brother Dante Gabriel, though she admitted to it being ‘merely a Christmas trifle’ in comparison. It’s essentially three short stories about three little girls — Flora, Edith and Maggie — who each have their own odd adventures; the tales are narrated by an aunt to her young nieces, and the childrens’ queries and comments continually intersperse the text in parentheses. In the first story, the most overtly Alice-esque, Flora falls asleep during her birthday party and passes through a door in a tree into a mirror-lined room filled with living furniture and a number of deformed children. Ruling over all is the ‘Birthday Queen’, an aggressive little girl who appears to be Flora’s sinister twin. The other two stories feature talking animals and, disturbingly, a boy whose face is one giant mouth. The title Speaking Likenesses means that the three girls each encounter, in Rossetti’s own words, ‘embodiments or caricatures of themselves or their faults’. Here, then, Rossetti is more moralising than Dodgson, and Flora, Edith and Maggie all finish their adventures having learnt some important life lesson or other. I actually found Speaking Likenesses a rather disquieting read: whilst the Alice books have their death jokes and bizarre transformations, their child protagonist certainly isn’t subjected to an unsettling game called ‘Hunt the Pincushion’ in which she is chased and pricked with pins and other sharp objects. The illustrations of Speaking Likenesses are by Arthur Hughes, a Pre-Raphaelite artist and also a close friend of Dodgson’s, and the drawings clearly show the inspiration of John Tenniel in Hughes’s depiction of the three girls. So, yes, after all this rambling, it’s an interesting little curiosity if you’ve got nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon; it can be read entirely for free online on the Internet Archive. An essay on Speaking Likenesses and its contexts by Julia Briggs can be found in The Culture of Christina Rossetti: Female Poetics and Victorian Contexts.

from the very good
http://funeral-wreaths.tumblr.com/

Victoria Osborne talks about The Long Engagement

Arthur Hughes - The Pained Heart', or 'Sigh No More, Ladies'

Portrait of Mrs. Louisa Jenner Arthur Hughes 1867

Dark thoughts by Arthur Hughes c.1899

Gleaning - Arthur Hughes

Arthur Hughes - Fair Rosamund

"Forget Me Not", By ~ Arthur Hughes

The Young Poet by Arthur Hughes

The Guarded Bower

The Beautiful Lady 1869

Passage illustrated: 'Cowering, he clung with his other hand to the huge hand which held his arm, and fear invaded his heart..' p. 440

At the Back of the North Windby George Macdonald. Good Words for the Young. July 1869

Cecily Ursula - aged three years

http://hoocher.com/Arthur_Hughes/Arthur_Hughes.htm

A Music Party: 1861-64