This book, written in 1985 and now republished as an ebook, covers the lives of the wives and models of the pre-Rafaelite painters. I've been fascinated by this revolutionary art movement for over 40 years, so I was delighted to see this book.

It covers the lives of these interesting women very well. Virtually all of them began impoverished or were from the lower class. Their association with these artists elevated them to some extent (often a great deal) and made their looks iconic.

Many of them were talented artists on their own, but these skills went unrecognized or fell by the wayside a their lives changed. Not all of these women had happy lives and some were marred by illness, loveless marriages, or unsuitable connections. Even so, they stand out against the rather dull portrait of most Victorian women as intelligent and involved partners in the work of the artists of this movement.

The main flaw of the well-written and thoroughly researched book is it feminist viewpoint. It sees the choices the women made often as being "subject" to men. it considers that these women were "exploited" and bemoans that a women with talent, such as Burne-Jones' wife Georgie, would choose raising her children as a preferred option to pursuing a life of art.

In addition to these comments about her subjects, the author will also take a paragraph or two to comment on the sorry state of women in the Nineteenth Century in more general terms. While too gratuitous and showing a doctrinaire and dated view of women, these can easily be ignored.

In spite of these flaws, it's a thoroughly engrossing book.