Well, I became an Historian of the Victorian, mainly because
it rhymed. On the whole I always wanted to become a novelist. Or a time
traveller, but I don’t have a very good sense of balance, so that was
out. Anyway, in a way, being a novelist means you can go anywhere you
want, any time or place. Also being a historian means I can unforgivably nosy and still appear professional.
When I was 20 I discovered the Pre-Raphaelites and did not
look back. Thirty years later, I am the author of the one and only
biography of Pre-Raphaelite muse, Fanny Cornforth and a novel about the life of
Alexa Wilding, A Curl of Copper and Pearl. My second novel, entitled We Are
Villains All, is about a poet, a photographer, some grisly murders, and a girl dressed up as a fox.
In 2018, I published Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang (Unicorn Publishing) which gave the compelling stories of 50 amazing Pre-Raphaelite women, some famous, some unknown to show the myriad of lives that went into the Pre-Raphaelite movement. This was followed by Light and Love: The Extraordinary Developments of Julia Margaret Cameron (Unicorn Publishing, 2020), following the lives of the pioneer photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and her maid/muse Mary Hillier. In 2022, I have worked with Unicorn Publishing to publish an updated, glorious new edition of Stunner: The Fall and Rise of Fanny Cornforth.
My posts on The Kissed Mouth are a way of exploring all manner of Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian subjects in though-provoking and humorous ways. I always find that I remember things if they make me laugh and I hope I apply that to what I talk about here.
If you are the sort of person who worries about credentials,
then rest assured I have done some book-reading in my time. I have a
masters in Victorian art and poetry and my thesis was on Tennyson and the
Pre-Raphaelites. I have spoken at
conferences on a range of subjects from Pre-Raphaelite ideals of beauty to
Thomas Hardy and cinema and publish articles in publications such as the Pre-Raphaelite Society Journal and Enchanted Living Magazine. I got to talk about Pre-Raphaelite women on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, I was once book of the week in The Lady and I have infested a National Trust property with hand-sewn Morris-print wombats (at their invitation, might I add).
If you have questions, comments, offers of money and general expressions of affection, plus any gossip at all (I don't need to know the people involved), I can be contacted via stonellwalker@googlemail.com
If you have questions, comments, offers of money and general expressions of affection, plus any gossip at all (I don't need to know the people involved), I can be contacted via stonellwalker@googlemail.com
