LizzieSiddal.com

Category: Lizzie’s Death and Exhumation

  • Did Elizabeth Siddal inspire Bram Stoker?

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    Stephanie E. Chatfield

    In the early years of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, artist Walter Deverell discovered Elizabeth Siddal working in a millinery shop.  After modeling for his painting Twelfth Night, Siddal posed for several Pre-Raphaelite painters, including William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. It was the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti who was most captivated by her. He drew…

  • The Worst Man in London

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    Stephanie E. Chatfield

     Seven years after her death, the coffin of Elizabeth Siddal was exhumed so that her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, could publish the poetry he had buried with her. It was a secret act, yet eventually the deed came to be known and has added a macabre tinge to the tale of Elizabeth Siddal. Rossetti was not present when his…

  • Hall Caine on Elizabeth Siddal’s Exhumation

    Hall Caine on Elizabeth Siddal’s Exhumation

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    Stephanie E. Chatfield

      In Hall Caine’s Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he touches briefly on Lizzie’s exhumation to retrieve the manuscript of poems that DGR had placed in her coffin. “Rossetti had buried the only complete copy of his poems with his wife at Highgate, and for a time he had been able to put by the…

  • The Sexton’s Tales: The Exhumation of Ophelia

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    Stephanie E. Chatfield

    I am grateful to Emlyn Harris for allowing me to share this podcast with you. You can download a copy here at LizzieSiddal.com or if you use iTunes, it is available there as well. The Sexton’s Tales series were originally broadcast by the BBC between 1995 and 1997. This episode, narrated by the writer Emlyn Harris, features the…

  • Film: The Legend of Lizzie Siddal

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    Stephanie E. Chatfield

    Poet Andrew Norris sent me a message via YouTube sharing his amazing film, based upon the exhumation of Elizabeth Siddal.  I am thrilled to share it with you, Norris is indeed a talent and I encourage you to see his other films via his blog.

  • Photographs of Elizabeth Siddal’s Grave

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    Stephanie E. Chatfield

    I am grateful to everyone who has been kind enough to share photos of the Rossetti plot at Highgate Cemetery, the burial place of Gabriele and Frances Rossetti (Dante Gabriel’s parents), Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti and other family members. Dante Gabriel Rossetti is not interred at Highgate; he is buried at…

  • Transcript of Elizabeth Siddal Rossetti’s Inquest

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    Stephanie E. Chatfield

    Appendix IV, Wife of Rossetti by Violet Hunt Note that her age was recorded as 29 instead of her actual age, 32. An Inquisition indented taken for our Sovereign Lady the Queen at the precinct of Bridewell in London, on the twelfth day of February in the Twenty-fifth year of the reign of our Sovereign…