What to Read When You Want to Know About Pre-Raphaelitism...

I was giving a tour of the Telling Tales exhibition at the Russell-Cotes and one of my lovely visitors asked if I had written a suggested reading list.  I was astonished I had not forced my random selection of opinions on you sooner, but thank you very much, here is my list...

Now, obviously there are thousands of books out there about Pre-Raphaelite art and if you click on 'Book Review' in the right-hand column you can probably find a load I've reviewed over the years, but I certainly have a very fond place in my heart for certain ones that have helped me along the way or have made me the researcher and writer I am today.  This is, therefore, not a definitive list, but my personal favourites which I will try and put in some sort of useful order...

General Books or where to start

The very first book on Pre-Raphaelite art I bought was this one...

I was at my first Open University summer school having a thoroughly miserable time when I found this book in the campus bookshop and it changed my life.  Is it the best book ever? Well, probably a bit out of date now seeing as it was published before I was born, but still it's a pretty decent starting point, with lots of good pictures and accessible text.  In the same vein and a little more recent is this one...

This is a little gem, with gorgeous illustrations in colour and a really helpful text.  This is probably one of the best beginner books but also a little pocket-sized book on art to dip into. I own the Alice in Wonderland book in this series too which is brilliant.

The Tate Gallery's 1984 catalogue holds a special place in my heart and is still a great catalogue, plus it's really cheap to buy second hand (for example £3.55 on Amazon).  There are lots of modern books on the Pre-Raphs, including 2012 Tate's catalogue, but they aren't £3.50.  Also, I love looking at older catalogues to see how our opinions change, not to mention who is in the catalogues and who isn't.  That leads me onto the next category...

Pre-Raphaelite Women

Oh, come on, of course I'm going to recommend this...

I'm so predictable, but also it's an easy book to dip in and out of and very accessible with lovely illustrations. It's now out of print, so all copies have to be secondhand but it seems to be around still for around £15. I love this book so much.  However, it would not have existed without this one...

I love Jan's The Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood but this one has so many pictures, photographs and the suchlike that it's a joy to flip through. It has images you won't find in many other places and covers both the lives of the models and the themes of paintings that include them.  It's a really interesting book which is beautifully illustrated, whereas Sisterhood is a more straightforward biography.  Buy both just to make sure you have all bases covered. 

As time went on, women became just part of the narrative in art without having to have a special mention, so this catalogue is a cracker for the women of the latter end of the nineteenth century, plus it has a picture of Irene Smedley in it that is swoon-worthy...

It's basically Birmingham's collection that toured just before (and over) lockdown.  It is an astonishingly beautiful book and I can't recommend it enough.

If you want to have a cracking little book on Rossetti's women, this is definitely a corker...

This is a recent addition and absolutely lovely, and is no doubt a popular book because of the eternal fascination with Rossetti and his ladies.  Very useful and most welcome if you want to have a good wallow in gorgeousness.

Mind you, you might want to get a bit up-close and personal with an individual subject, so here are some suggestions...

Well, yes, obviously.  While we're on the subject...

Outrageous self-promotion! Anyway, I especially loved the following while writing Light and Love...

This is a very lovely, dark book, concentrating on the women who modelled for JMC and so obviously I loved it.  There are lots of smashing books on JMC now and I have great hopes that she is now regarded as one of the nation's finest artists and a national treasure. If you feel ambitious but strapped for cash (a familiar feeling) then Getty have made the complete catalogue of her photographs free to download, which is rather nice of them.

There is a fair amount on the women in a few of the general Pre-Raphaelite books, most interestingly this one...

Gay Daly's 1990 look at the sordid love lives of the Pre-Raphs is brilliant and far more fun that Desperate Romantics. Also, you can get it quite cheaply, which is an absolute bonus.

Individual Women 

I obviously recommend Stunner as I'm biased, but there really isn't much else out there on Fanny.  I own a copy of Paull Baum's 1940 edition of Rossetti's letters to Fanny but it cost me loads ages ago and there aren't many of them around.  Fascinating book though and I recommend it if you can find a copy.

If I really have to talk about other Pre-Raphaelite women, then here's a lovely book...

This was an unexpected pleasure - a large scale picture book biography which is a pleasurable read and full of gorgeous colour illustrations.  Add to that, this one...

One of my favourite books of last year.  I think we have a very set idea of the Morris's marriage (how can you not?) but there is a lot that contradicts the notion of unhappiness and cheating as life is not that straightforward. I felt I knew them better after reading it.

Let's just keep it in the family and get this catalogue on May Morris as well.  Honestly, they were such a talented family and you can't go wrong with that collection of books.

While I'm on the subject of the individual women, may I draw your attention to this absolute role-model and stunner...

This, of course, is the magnificent Diana Holman-Hunt and when I grow up, I will also look at people that witheringly too and shout things like 'Unless you have brought me a lighter or a drink you can sod off!' which is very much the expression she is wearing here.  She wrote this wonder...

This book is marvellous for the Waugh sisters, obviously, but also contains a helping of Annie Miller, which is unusual.

Rossetti

Deary me, yes, he probably does need his own section. If I can make a plea to a publisher to re-release Virginia Surtees catalogue of his works so peasants like me can own a copy of a book I used to covet from the local library.  If you have a spare £500, you can probably find the text and plates, but they are getting scarcer. If you can cope with the Italian, this is a pretty good catalogue of his works...

Maria Benedetti's book is not too big and the pictures are large thumbnails for the most part but it does provide a lot of information and is really helpful in showing more obscure images.  It is eminently portable, which is a quality I often look for in a book. I'll come to the biographies at the end under free books, but if I had to get something a little unusual, then this is splendid...

I love a unique angle and looking at the man through his (and a lot of Victorians) passion for Exotic animals is definitely one I liked.  It still has repercussions today - did you know that wallabies now count as indigenous to the South Downs as there are so damn many of them.  We also have parrots in our local park. The introduction of foreign species makes our country a more interesting and colourful place, that's for sure. I still have great hopes for the reintroduction of dodos. 

If you have to have a big book of pictures, there are numerous catalogues and no doubt the one for the April Rossettis exhibition will be glorious, but I remember buying my next suggestion at a secondhand book shop and being filled with joy...

It's Alicia Craig Faxon's whopping great big 1989 Rossetti biography.  Gorgeously illustrated and sturdy enough to kill someone with. Marvellous.

I have a very soft spot for Oswald Doughty's 1949 A Victorian Romantic...

He included Alexa Wilding!  In 1949! Absolute hero, and he has one of the rare photos of her in there too.

This one has to be an essential...

No-one contemporary to Rossetti recorded so much unbiased (as far as possible) information on the artist as Boyce, whose diaries show us life in 1850s and 1860s bohemian Chelsea. Yes, they are heavily edited and I believe the originals are long since gone, but you get a very clear picture of Boyce and his circle.  Mercifully, this book was re-released recently and is much easier to get hold of than The Owl and the Rossettis (I have a ridiculously cheap edition I treasure dearly because they ask stupid money for it otherwise) and it is nice to read about a privileged man who doesn't seem to do anyone any harm.

A special mention has to go to this one...

You might not be overly familiar with Robert Bateman, but this is such an engaging book, not only about Bateman and his fascinating story but about Nigel and his journey to write the book.  It is a very special book due to this combination of timelines, almost like A S Byatt's Possession but it is impossible not to love Nigel and his lovely partner and feel like you are being chatted to like a friend. 

Books for Free

Obviously there are shedloads more books and you might have favourites that I haven't included.  I have to say that over the last few years an absolute revelation has been Archive.org, which has been invaluable in finding old, out of print books (and also borrowing a newer book for a hour to have a little flip through to see if I want to buy it).  For example, I used The Owl and the Rossettis online before I could afford a new one during the pandemic. There are scores of books on Rossetti, dating from just after his death to modern times and if the book is out of copyright, you can normally download a pdf to keep. The quality of the illustrations can be variable, but if you want to have a look at, for example Marillier's excellent 1899 illustrated memoir, you can do so here.  I also have accessed Hall Caine's work through Archive.org as I still refuse to give him any money, the swine.  I started off researching the Pre-Raphaelites with a local town library, no money and no internet.  I understand we need to get our resources where we can and Archive.org is a blessing for the homebound and impoverished among us. I always say that researching and writing about these unknown figure is possible wherever you are, you just need the confidence/bloodymindedness to do it and use all the resources you can get your hands on. 

Oh, I almost forgot, you simply have to buy a copy of Bram Dijkstra's Idols of Perversity...

Trust me on that one...