Book Review: Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood

Posted on 21 August 2007

ISBN: 0704301695
ISBN-13: 9780704301696

Format: Paperback, 408pp

Publisher: Quartet

One of the most treasured books on my shelf, I’m surprised that I have not reviewed Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood on this site before! Jan Marsh, who has written extensively about the Pre-Raphaelites, breathes life into the women whose faces we know so well. Featured in awe-inspiring Pre-Raphaelite paintings, these women have been romanticized and idealized for generations of art lovers. Marsh takes a level headed, feminist approach to discussing the lives of six women crucial to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Elizabeth Siddal, Emma Madox Brown, Annie Miller, Fanny Cornforth, Jane Morris, and Georgiana Burne-Jones.

Separated into three sections, Marsh allows us to see these women through each important stage of her life: “Youth”, “Marriage”, and “Maturity”. We see them as unique individuals instead of extensions of the male members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Through art, these seemingly ordinary women became legends, the epitome of Victorian beauty. So much so that myth and glamour have surrounded their names to such a degree that it is hard for us to see them as three dimensional, red-blooded women with desires or heartbreaks of their own. Marsh rectifies this in a masterful way, presenting each female as a whole being with passions as well as faults. She does not gloss over any detail, nor does she tarnish the Pre-Raphaelite legends that surround these women. If anything, she inspires us to accept these women for the duality of their existence. Yes, they were the goddesses of Victorian art. But they were also lovers, mothers, wives, and everything that encompasses those roles. They embody the duality of womanhood: often so judged by our appearance that the character that lies beneath becomes obscured and often missed by those who are unwilling to take the time to look beyond the superficial.

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