Book after Book

By Lucinda Hawksley Published by Andre Deutsch Ltd It was the year 1996. I was in London for the first time when I saw her at the Tate Britain. For some time I would simply think of her as the model for John Everett Millais’s haunting Ophelia . But she had a name, that peculiarly beautiful woman: Elizabeth Siddall or, as she was later known, Lizzie Siddal. In Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel , British biographer and author Lucinda Hawksley uses her talent as a writer to bring Lizzie to life and narrate her fascinating ascent to fame. To do so, she combines her storytelling skills with the words of the people who knew her. It’s not just a woman, who arises from the page, it’s the whole Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the people who followed and were connected to the artists of the group. Similar to Mary Benson’s biography , which I read earlier on this year, this work of non-fiction reads like a novel and keeps you hooked from start to finish. Friendship, love, b...

One more title from my ever-expanding reading wish list. ** The cover image is for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of this book for review, I will change the cover so as to reflect the edition received. ** Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel By Lucinda Hawksley Amazon's product description: The supermodel did not arrive when Twiggy first donned false eyelashes; the concept began more than one hundred years previously, with a stunning young artists' model whose face captivated a generation. Saved from the drudgery of a working-class existence by an astute young Pre-Raphaelite artist, Lizzie Siddal rose to become one of the most famous faces in Victorian Britain and a pivotal figure of London's artistic world, until tragically ending her young life in a laudanum-soaked suicide in 1862. In the twenty-first century, even those who do not know her name always recognise her face: she is Millais...