If you’re interested in studying the Victorian era seriously, then diaries and letters are important. At times I feel like a 21st-century snoop, devouring personal journals and private correspondence whenever I get the chance. Through contemporary accounts, the past may not always come alive but it shines through the mist more clearly. The diaries of Irish poet William Allingham are…
- Books, Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth, Jane Burden Morris, Julia Margaret Cameron, Pre-Raphaelite Subjects and Themes, Shakespeare, Tennyson, William Allingham, William Morris
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George Eliot, Professor Altick, and the Mysterious Symbol
Professor Richard D. Altick is a man I never met but respect a great deal. Here in the United States, he is regarded as a pioneer of Victorian Studies. He was the author of over twenty books, including The Scholar Adventures (1950) and The Art of Literary Research (1963). After his death at the age of 92, The Telegraph published an…
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Pan, Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Above is a detail from Arthur Rackham’s illustration of Pan from The Wind in the Willows. I first became enchanted by Pan when, as a little girl, I read The Wind in the Willows. I was in love with that book from the moment Mole became fed up with his spring-cleaning, left his hole, and met Ratty. Theirs is a beautiful…
- Books, Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Maria Spartali Stillman, Valentine Cameron Prinsep
Art of the Story
In a post a few years ago, I said that my love of Pre-Raphaelite art probably stems from my lifelong love of stories. Much of the Pre-Raphaelites’ work presents a narrative often inspired by literature and myth. I have noticed recently that a number of Victorian artworks are not just the telling of a story, but a depiction of a…
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We Are Villains All
Synopsis: 1890, Daneburton, Hampshire: Maud Blake, spinster companion to flighty, young Emeline Hutchinson, is the least important woman at the weekly poetry circle. She sits at the back, barely able to see the poet who presides over them all, but she requires only his words to fuel her dreams. For twenty years Max has lived peacefully in the market town of…