Review: HOW WE MIGHT LIVE: AT HOME WITH JANE AND WILLIAM MORRIS By Suzanne Fagence Cooper

 

For the first time, a joint biography of William Morris and his creative partner and wife, Jane Morris.

William Morris – poet, designer, campaigner, hero of the Arts & Crafts movement – was a giant of the Victorian age. His beautiful creations and provocative philosophies are still with us today: but his wife Jane is too often relegated to a footnote, an artist’s model given no history or personality of her own.

In truth, Jane and William's personal and creative partnership was the central collaboration of both their lives. The homes they made together – at Red House, Kelmscott Manor and in London – were gathering places for artists, writers and radical thinkers. Through their domestic life and the things they collected and made, Jane and William explored how we all might live a life more focused on beauty and fulfillment. As William said, ‘The secret of true happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life’.

In How We Might Live, Suzanne Fagence Cooper explores the lives and legacies of Jane and William Morris, finally giving Jane's work the attention it deserves and taking us inside two  worlds of unparalleled creative artistry.

Publication Date:  09/06/2022

ISBN-13:  9781529409482

Type:  Hardback

Format:  Books

William and Jane's marriage was tested by infidelity, and the chronic illness of their daughter Jenny. There were times of sadness and dislocation.  Still, these sufferings were resolved kindly.  In their London home, poets and political firebrands often sat side by side at supper.  We can hear the fierce discussions, the explosive tempers.  And yet, under Jane's roof, there was always space for careful, quiet designing, for embroidery and calligraphy. 

William himself was constantly trying out new ideas, writing, drawing, weaving, talking.  Sometimes it was hard for Jane to keep pace with him when he was ablaze with enthusiasm about a new project.  It was then that all her resourcefulness, all her patience was most keenly valued by her family and friends. 

I am astounded by the amount of research Dr. Cooper has done in writing her joint biography of married couple William and Jane Morris.  A chronological look into the beginning of a boy's life named William Morris, the sibling patterns, his wanting to be a priest, his education at Oxford which introduced him to a lifelong friendship with a young painter named Edward Burne-Jones, which introduced him to a bit of a known painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. These two men would lead William to meet a very young, very tall, strange beauty of a girl named Jane Burden...the rest is history!  Not quite...Young William was content enough to live a quiet country life with his books on medieval history and nordic folklore surrounded by beautiful gardens until this goddess stepped into his world. His focus and direction took on new meaning while trying to get to know Jane Burden.  

We owe a huge debt to the research Dr. Cooper has done on Jane Morris (nee Burden). She has traced her life from childhood to adulthood while finding a few treasures along the way.  The veil has been lifted on the little girl growing up with siblings in small living quarters in the poverty section in and around Oxford to becoming the muse for a group of well educated painters and poets. 

William and Jane, The Morrises, were never a simple couple to understand. However, in trying to discern each individually, How We Might Live opens up a 'pandora's box' of lifelong hidden treasures both otherworldly and divine.  The utter brilliance of How We Might Live is how respectfully Dr. Cooper covers the relationship Jane Morris had with her husband's friend, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the cost it would have on her reputation later in life. I was surprised by a few dinner behaviours of Rossetti toward Jane but I will leave it at that. I loved how Suzanne Fagence Cooper made connections between Rossetti's drawings/sketches of Jane and his insulting and mean hearted doodles of his friend William relating to the progression of his affair. My heart was full of sadness for William.  This is just a taste of what readers I am sure want to know.  Also, another wonderful surprise was reading one theory that it was Sarah Prinsep who taught Jane Morris how to become a lady by educating her on how to entertain and be a supporting wife. Jane apparently lived at Little Holland House with Sarah, her husband and a menagerie of painters and poets.  I hope this is true!  

I was fascinated by the relationship between William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement when it came to the business side of how fabrics and wallpapers were made.  He was a creative genius of a man who lectured and traveled quite a lot. However, as the marriage progressed, Jane would give birth to two daughters Jenny and May Morris. Jane was an absolute doting mother who would do anything for her girls. William was the soft, mushy, sweet funny storytelling and playing with the girls dad that one would expect. 

At the end of the day, How We Might Live shows how a marriage works and survives throughout affairs, illness, fighting, business profit loss, etc.  To cope with Jane's affair, William believing he could not give Jane what she needed, chose to travel to Iceland, getting away to think things over. In the end, as William aged and his health grew poorer, they came together as a stronger couple who talked things out privately. When William Morris passed away, it was Jane Morris who continued to keep the business running along with her grown daughter May Morris who would eventually take over after Jane's passing.  

Swirling around The Morrises were many favorites of The Pre-Raphaelite Circle:  Lizzie Siddal is discussed throughout How We Might Live in association with her relationship and marriage to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Also mentioned was Lizzie's childhood friend, Emma Madox Brown who according to her diary was, E.D. Emma Drunk, wife of Ford Madox Brown. John Ruskin makes a few appearances as a friend of William Morris in his love of Medieval and Gothic.  Red Lion Mary is introduced as helping the painters out during their times when paintings were not selling. Fanny Cornforth is mentioned once in passing. Mostly, it is Edward Burne-Jones, wife Georgie, kids, Philip and Margaret as supporting cast. 

I am humbly grateful to have been sent an early digital review copy from Ana and Elizabeth of Quercus Books and River Run Books.

You can purchase the hardback, quercusbooks

The Moxon Tennyson: A Landmark in Victorian Illustration-Series in Victorian Studies by Simon Cooke

 

Hardcover
ISBN 978-0-8214-2426-1
Retail price: $80.00
Release date: January 2021
81 illus. · 254 pages · 7 × 10 in

The Lady of Shalott by William Holman-Hunt

Engraved by the Dalziels /J. Thompson, 1857, Wood engraving

A new perspective on a book that transformed Victorian illustration into a stand-alone art.

Edward Moxon’s 1857 edition of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Poems dramatically redefined the relationship between images and words in print. Cooke’s study, the first book to address the subject in over 120 years, presents a sweeping analysis of the illustrators and the complex and challenging ways in which they interpreted Tennyson’s poetry. This book considers the volume’s historical context, examining in detail the roles of publisher, engravers, and binding designer, as well as the material difficulties of printing its fine illustrations, which recreate the effects of painting. Arranged thematically and reproducing all the original images, the chapters present a detailed reappraisal of the original volume and the distinctive culture that produced it.

Simon Cooke is the editor for book illustration and design on Victorian Web. He is the author of Illustrated Periodicals of the 1860s and coeditor of two collections of essays. He has published on Victorian book art, Gothic, Sensationalism, and the Pre-Raphaelites.

I've been reading my review copy from publishers Ohio University Press. It's a beautiful edition and seeing the gorgeous illustrations from all the illustrators not just the well-known Pre-Raphaelite painters has reminded me of the beauty of Tennyson's poems. It makes me want to sit down and read his beautiful words over and over again.

Stay tuned for my upcoming review.  I just wanted to post this for anyone who might want to request  a review copy or purchase it. Please know that it is expensive though.

If you are in the United Kingdom,  Waterstones

If you are in the United States,  Ohio University Press

Book Launch in Australia for Kate Forsyth's Beauty in Thorns!

My apologies for being away so long. However, my new job is keeping me extremely busy. Besides the fact that I'm moving in six months.

International Author, Kate Forsyth along with Vintage Australia publishing is having a Book Launch following the release of her latest novel, Beauty in Thorns on Thursday, 6 July 2017.

If you are in or near Balgowah, Australia, please stop by Berkelouw Books and help them celebrate!

I will be receiving my copy of Beauty in Thorns very soon, so please expect my upcoming review.

I had a wonderful breakfast with Kate Forsyth in a lovely cafe earlier today. We talked all about her new book, the Pre-Raphaelite artists and muses including her thoughts on their lives, loves and we certainly laughed a lot!


The Pre-Raphaelites were determined to liberate art and love from the shackles of convention.

Ned Burne-Jones had never had a painting lesson and his family wanted him to be a parson. Only young Georgie Macdonald – the daughter of a Methodist minister – understood. She put aside her own dreams to support him, only to be confronted by many years of gossip and scandal.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was smitten with his favourite model, Lizzie Siddal. She wanted to be an artist herself, but was seduced by the irresistible lure of laudanum.

William Morris fell head-over-heels for a ‘stunner’ from the slums, Janey Burden. Discovered by Ned, married to William, she embarked on a passionate affair with Gabriel that led inexorably to tragedy.

Margot Burne-Jones had become her father’s muse. He painted her as Briar Rose, the focus of his most renowned series of paintings, based on the fairy-tale that haunted him all his life. Yet Margot longed to be awakened to love.

Bringing to life the dramatic true story of love, obsession and heartbreak that lies behind the Victorian era’s most famous paintings, Beauty in Thorns is the story of awakenings of all kinds. 

Paperback, 464 pages

Expected publication: July 3rd 2017 by Vintage Australia  

ISBN13 9781925324242

For more information visit the author's website, Kate Forsyth

A Circle of Sisters Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin by Judith Flanders

The Macdonald Sisters - Alice, Georgiana, Agnes and Louisa - started life among the ranks of the lower-middle classes, with little prospect of social advancement. But as wives and mothers they made a single family of the poet of Empire, Rudyard Kipling, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, Edward Poynter, President of the Royal Academy, and the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. In telling their remarkable story, Judith Flanders displays the fluidity of Victorian society, and explores the life of the family in the nineteenth century. 

 The Macdonald Sisters:  From left: Alice Macdonald Kipling (mother of Rudyard) at 53, 1890; Georgiana Macdonald Burne-Jones, wife of the artist, in 1900 at the age of 60; Louisa Macdonald Baldwin, several years before her death in 1925 at 79 (she was Stanley Baldwin's mother); Agnes Macdonald Poynter in her 50's, sometime in the 1890's (her husband was director of the National Gallery).  Photos courtesy Helen Macdonald/National Portrait Gallery/From "Circle of Sisters"

'They were, in many ways, absentee wives and mothers; they accrued power to themselves by their fragility. They were vortexes around which family life whirled. No one could fail to be aware of them, but it was awareness of an absence, not a presence.'  Judith Flanders, A Circle of Sisters 

 The book cover of A Circle of Sisters is Green Summer by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, 1868.

Although, I have read two biographies on The Macdonald Sisters, it is this sweet novella about them that I loved most of all. Judith Flanders, retells the chronological life of not only the sisters and their families but includes their famous husbands to be! The presence of artists and the genius of creativity envelops every page. Perhaps, my most favorite aspect of, 'A Circle of Sisters' by Judith Flanders are the quotes of letters by Lady Burne-Jones, her husband Sir Edward Burne-Jones (Ned) and his famous Pre-Raphaelite mates William Morris, John Ruskin Dante Gabriel Rossetti, including Swinburne and The Prinseps.

How I wish I could crawl into the memories held within these pages. Not necessarily go back in time but let the words, the memories of these beautiful artists bring me to their world permanently.  Oh, to walk around the hallway of Rottingdean, Red House, and Kelmscott. To see little May and Jenny Morris tottle about the passages over creaky wooden floorboards disturbing Ned and Topsy in their studios! To see the wives, Georgie, Janey, and Lizzie, huddled together, seated in the kitchen or living room in their long dresses listening, talking, sewing catching up on their lives and how their rambunctious husbands are annoying them!

Tennyson's Poems Illustrated is mine all mine!

There has been one illustrated version of The Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson that I've wanted for quite some time now. It is available on ebay for under fifty dollars even though several versions were published between 1882-5. So, I don't know if it falls under the 'rare book' category but it is nineteenth-century, so I'm putting it in that category!

Thank you to my friend Gwendolyn for letting me know that in my neighborhood a second hand book store had a hardcover version of Tennyon's Poems Illustrated. Needless to say, I ran over there as soon as I could and in the window stood proudly the 1882 U.S. edition by G.W. Borland and Co.  Some of the illustrations of Tennyson poems include:  Lady of Shalott illustrated by William Holman, Sir Galahad and The Palace of Art illustrated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and numerous illustrations of Sir John Everett Millais but my very favorite is for the poem Locksley Hall.
I never imagined I would own this edition and my rare book collection is off to a very good start!

The Palace of Art illustration by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1857

The Lady of Shalott illustrated by William Holman-Hunt 1857

Sir Galahad illustrated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1857

 

Locksley Hall by Sir John Everett Millais 1857

The Millers Daughter beautifully illustrated though I don't know by whom! 

just me doing some light reading! 

ECHOS DU TEMPS PASSÉ ~ ECHOES OF TIME PAST~ LADY BURNE-JONES~GEORGIANA MACDONALD BURNE-JONES (21 July 1840—2 February 1920)

 

Georgiana Burne-Jones photographed by Frederick Hollyer platinotype cabinet card, circa 1882, NPG

 "I wish it were possible to explain the impression made upon me as a young girl whose experience so far had been quite remote from art, by sudden and close intercourse with those to whom it was the breath of life. The only approach I can make to describing it is by saying that i felt in the presence of a new religion. Their love of beauty did not seem to me unbalanced, but as if it included the whole world and raised the point from which they regarded everything. Human beauty especially was in a way sacred to them, I thought; and of this I received confirmation quite lately from a lady...who had been in her youth an object of wild enthusiasm and admiration to Rossetti, Morris, and Edward...I found that she kept the same feeling that I do about that time-that the men were as good as they were gifted, and unlike any others that we knew..."I never saw such men," she said, "it was being in a new world to be with the. I sat to them and was with them, and they were different to everyone else I ever saw. And I was a holy thing to them..." Lady Burne-Jones~Georgiana Burne-Jones (nee Macdonald)

I’ve always wanted to learn more about Lady Burne-Jones (nee Macdonald) ever since I discovered the paintings of her husband Sir Edward Burne-Jones. So, let’s go back to the beginning shall we!

Georgiana's parents: Rev. George Macdonald and Hannah Jones

 

Georgiana Macdonald was of Scotch-Irish descent born of true Celtic blood; one of eleven children born to Rev. George Macdonald and Hannah Jones. Bear in mind Georgiana’s father is not the author and illustrator George Macdonald.  George Macdonald became a member of The Methodist Society at the age of seventeen during the year 1823 throughout Hammersmith Circuit at Brentford, Twickenham, Richmond, Isleworth, Harrow and Hounslow in London, England. His father James Macdonald, a reverend himself gave his son the following advice, “Whenever you begin to preach you will need all the courage you can muster…Accustom yourself to speak with ease and propriety in private, and it will become habitual to you to do so in public.” 

Georgiana’s mother, Hannah Jones was George’s second wife and is described by her sister Edith as being, “of fair complexion and colour as her father. Her temperament was reserved and very sensitive to both pain and beauty. Her character was high-minded and honourable, brave, physically and morally deeply religious if rather sadly so having sensitive nerves. She was steadfast in her affections and tenderly kind and helpful to all around her.” Now, this sounds an awfully lot like her daughter Georgiana to me! George and Hannah were married on May 2, 1833, at Manchester’s Collegiate Church. She wore a Brussels lace veil over a Quaker-like grey satin bonnet. 

Fifth child Georgiana was born in Birmingham, England, on July 21, 1840. Thankfully, her mother, Hannah’s letters remain providing a glimpse of what Georgie’s life was like growing up as a little girl. The first entry describes a two and a half year old Georgie, “Georgie continues as sound as a pot and I am sorry to say is growing very vain; she has found it out that whenever she goes to the looking-glass there is a very pretty little girl there and she thinks it is her.” 

Hannah also recorded an interesting conversation between her three daughters, “Carrie: What is marrying? Georgie replied, “It is staying at home.” Carrie replied, “No, it is going out to breakfast and getting a husband.” Alice said, “No, it is not that for papa is married and has no husband, nor ever had.” Then Georgie ended the conversation with her sisters, “Well, I’ll do so; I’ll have a husband mytelp.” Carrie/Caroline was six years old, Alice was seven years old, and little Georgie/Georgiana was four years old. 

Georgie’s brother Fred described her best in his memoir, “Georgie was small-she was in fact very small indeed; all of them were small with dainty little hands and feet, rosy complexion, abundant hair, brown with bronze lights in it, and glorious dark-blue eyes. In that little frame, dwelt a noble spirit, ever reverencing the highest and seeking the beautiful. She seemed immune by nature from any small aims or self-conceit. She had not her sister’s readiness of faculty in all directions, but a capacity and taste for study unknown to her. She possessed a fine soprano voice, not light and flexible, but powerful and sweet. She had considerable natural gifts for drawing, but being thrown among artists of genius discouraged her from continuing to cultivate this gift. She shared with the rest of the family a keen sense of humour, sometimes rising to wit.” 
 

As little Georgie grew up her attributes were noted by many artistic family friends. For instance, William De Morgan described Georgie as, “Her command of words was not inferior to that of her sisters, she never began a sentence without knowing just how she was going to end it.”  Her son-in-law J.W. Mackail said, “Her intellectual powers were expert in such matters as art and letters and were greater than her artistic and more eminent than her nobility of character.” She was known for her bell like deep voice when she read poetry aloud and all who knew her agreed that Edward Burne-Jones’s paintings of her captured her sweet face lit by smiles and eyes of light and frankness, a depth of feeling questioning and believing eyes. By the time poor brother Fred came along he looked back on his childhood thusly, “What a garden of girls it was in which my childhood and youth were spent.” 

The Macdonald’s spent six years in London, three in Chelsea and three in Marlybone between 1853-1859. Georgie would have been a teenager during these years and it is noted that the Macdonald family were friends with a young William Morris who designed an altar frontal for their church. His friend Edward Jones was there and they did spend days at Red Lion Square together. This is when young Edward first cast his eyes on the lovely Georgiana Macdonald it is thought. So, around 1853 at the Macdonald Family home located on 39 Sloane Square, London, England young Edward pays a visit to Georgiana. Edward Jones left Oxford without waiting to take a degree and began his painting career instead in lodgings opposite the chapel in Sloane Terrace where George Macdonald preached. During 1856 Edward helped Georgie begin taking painting and drawing lessons at Gore House and they including William Morris went to an exhibit at the Royal Academy together where William Morris viewed April Love by Arthur Hughes and he said it was his favorite! So much so he told Edward to, “Go and nobble that picture as soon as possible before anyone else should get it!” and he did. Oh, and within three weeks time, Edward and Georgiana became engaged to be married. 

In 1857 The Macdonald’s moved again into the house at 17 Beaumont Street which nobody liked. Georgie remembered, “Of course, Edward and Morris arranged to live together and by the time we came to Marlybone they had found rooms at No. 1 Upper Gordon Street, and we all settled down more or less contentedly in our dingy surroundings.”  Three or so years into their long engagement, Georgie records the moment Edward asked her parents for her hand in marriage, “One day early in June my mother called me into her room and told me that Edward had been to see my father and herself and they left the answer they should give entirely to my decision.”  

Edward and Georgie were married on June 9, 1860 at the Cathedral of Manchester the same church as her parents. Edward was twenty six years old and Georgie was nineteen years old. Apparently, their wedding night was a dreadful one; Edward had laryngitis and Georgie took care of him at a cheap hotel in Chester, England. They were supposed to join Gabriel and Lizzie Rossetti in Paris but they never made it. In a few days they were in their first home together in Russell Place.  

 Frederick Hollyer photograph of Edward Burne-Jones

"Rather tall and very thin, though not especially slender, straightly built and with wide shoulders. Extremely pale he was, with the paleness that belongs to fair-haired people,and looked delicate, but not ill. His hair was perfectly straight, and of a colourless kind. His eyes were light grey (if their colour could be defined in words), and the space that their setting took up under his brow was extraordinary; the nose quite right in proportion, but very individual in outline, and a mouth large and well moulded, the lips meeting with absolute sweetness and repose. The shape of his head was domed, and noticeable for its even balance; his forehead, wide and rather high, was smooth and calm, and the line of the brow over the eyes was a fine one. From the eyes themselves power simply radiated, and as he talked and listened, if anything moved him, not only his eyes but his whole face seemed lit up from within. He was hopelessly plain. His ordinary manner was shy, but not self-conscious, for it gave the impression that he noticed everything. At once his power of words struck me and his vehemence. He was easily stirred, and then his speech was as swift and clear as possible, yet well ordered and going straight to the mark. He had a beautiful voice...Epithets he always used wonderfully." Lady Burne-Jones

Fresh in the blush of the first year of marriage, Edward writes to his sister-in-law Louise nicknamed, ‘Louie’ describing his wife, “Don’t you love to be with her, Louie? Feel better, and dream more tranquilly, and wake more happily, and live more vividly when she is with you.” 

 

 Georgie Burne-Jones holding her son Philip, Pip!

The Burne-Jones’s moved from Russell Place to 62 Great Russell Street where Georgie gave birth to a baby boy born on October 21, 1861 named Phillip nicknamed Pip. In 1864 she caught Scarlet Fever and gave birth to a premature son Christopher that lived only a short time. In 1866, daughter Margaret was born. Later, family friend, Graham Robertson described Margaret as having “the Macdonald reticence and reserve developed to an abnormal degree. She is still as shy as she was when a child.”  

 Margaret Mackail (nee Burne-Jones)

As the years progressed Edward became one of the greatest painters of the nineteenth-century not only exclusively Pre-Raphaelite Art. His friend, true brother and artistic partner became another artistic genius in the art and craft movements as well as the printing press. Sadly William Morris passed away on October 3, 1896 and Georgie had this to say, “We said to each other it is no weeping matter. It almost frightened me at first to see how he flew at his work; I need not say that Edward works through everything. We are not broken, either in body or spirit, by the death of our beloved friend. Edward is slowly but steadily gaining ground, and goes out every day. Now, he works less feverishly.”  

It was back in 1880 while Georgie was walking across the downs from Brighton to Rottingdean that she found an empty cottage which Edward bought immediately. Margaret Burne-Jones married Jack Mackail here in September, 1888. She had a daughter, Angela in 1890 and a son Denis in 1892. Edward and Georgie were now grandparents! A role both of them treasured with grandbabies they so lovingly cherished as evidenced in surviving photographs taken by Henry and Richard Stiles in 1895.

 

 Grandpa Burne-Jones with his grandson Denis and granddaughter Angela who both became authors.

 

At the age of sixty four in 1898 Edward died in his wife’s arms of angina; a failure of the coronary arteries. He was surrounded by his grown children and loved ones.  Of the death she only said, “Edward changed his life as Friday morning dawned.” 

Annie, house maid to the Burne-Jones’s kept a diary recording Georgie’s final moments, “My lady caught a cold and cough and was in bed when Dr. Mills ordered Oxygen to help her breathing which made her laugh. She was in and out of consciousness but spoke of seeing ‘a man that was good and pious in her bedroom.”Around 3 O’clock on the afternoon of Monday, February 2^nd, 1920, Widow Georgiana Burne-Jones, Lady Burne-Jones (nee Macdonald) breathed her last. 

 SOURCES

The Macdonald Sisters by A.W. Baldwin Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, Illustrated, London: Peter Davies Ltd. by The Windmill Press Ltd., Copyright 1960.

Victorian Sisters: The remarkable Macdonald women and the great men they inspired by Ina Taylor, Published by Ellinham Press, Great Britain, Copyright 2006. 

Memorials of Burne-Jones by Lady Georgiana Burne-Jones, Volumes I and II, New York, London, The Macmillan Company, Copyright 1904.