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...

The Impossible Life of Mary Benson By Rodney Bolt Published by Atlantic Books 'As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil' was the phrase once used by Ethel Smyth to describe Mary Benson, née Mary Sidgewick. In his extremely well-researched and beautifully presented book, Rodney Bolt introduces us to this extraordinary woman. Despite being a work of non-fiction, As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil is so readable and engrossing that you almost forget that Mary is not a fictional heroine of a Victorian historical novel. Bolt has succeeded in portraying the wife, and then widow, of Edward Benson in a most exquisite way. Complete with a detailed bibliography and enriched by photographs of the Benson family and their circle of friends, this chronicle of the upbringing, married years and widowhood of Mary Benson is extremely interesting. Not only do we learn about the life of a fascinating woman but – as we follow her from birth to death (1841-1918) – we also gain a valuable insight i...

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...

Two more titles from my rapidly growing reading wish list. ** The cover images are for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of any of these books for review, I will change the cover(s) so as to reflect the edition received. ** Just Take You Coat Off: A lesbian Life By Barbara Bell From http://www.brightonourstory.co.uk/ : The daughter of a mill worker in Lancashire, Barbara Bell had her lesbian 'initiation' the year after Radclyffe Hall's The Well Of Loneliness (1928). Since then, she has never had the time to be lonely. [...] Barbara Bell here tells the full story of her extraordinary life and times. Truly Wilde: The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde, Oscar's Unusual Niece By Joan Schenkar Amazon's product description: Born a scant three months after her uncle Oscar's notorious arrest, raised in the shadow of the greatest scandal of the turn of the twentieth century, Dolly Wilde attracted people of taste a...

Two more titles from my endless reading wish list. ** The cover images are for illustrative purposes only. If you are a publisher and would kindly like to offer me a copy of any of these books for review, I will change the cover(s) so as to reflect the edition received. ** Don’t Look at Me Like That By Diana Athill Amazon’s product description: In England half a century ago, well-brought-up young women are meant to aspire to the respectable life. Some things are not to be spoken of; some are most certainly not to be done. There are rules, conventions. Meg Bailey obeys them. She progresses from Home Counties school to un-Bohemian art college with few outward signs of passion or frustration. Her personality is submerged in polite routines; even with her best friend, Roxane, what can't be said looms far larger than what can. But circumstances change. Meg gets a job and moves to London. Roxane gets married to a man picked out by her mother. And then Meg does something shocking - shoc...