Anne Sebba

Sitting Pretty

Wives and Stunners: The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Muses

By

Macmillan 315pp £20 order from our bookshop

The story of the disastrous marriage between the beautiful young Effie Gray and John Ruskin, the brilliant but socially maladroit art critic almost a decade her senior, is well known and often dramatised. Apparently, on their wedding night in April 1848, he was so shocked at the sight of a female body, something which hitherto he knew only from pictures in books, that he was unable to consummate the marriage. Painfully, they endured married life for another six miserable years, with Ruskin drawing ever closer to his parents. He wrote to them of his pride in seeing his twenty-something wife shine in society, while regretting that in ten years’ time, once her cheeks had wrinkled, she would no longer sparkle.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'To be clever without wanting to glory in it, put dimmer people down or make an act of covering it up (viz Boris Jo… ,
    • 'Her favourite design included a body in the shape of a horse, with a steam engine inside ... The passenger would t… ,
    • Sign up to our email newsletter below! Get free articles, highlights from the archive, and chances to win theatre… ,
    • RT : Founded in 1979, is a trusted independent source for reviews of new books across a variety of genres. A… ,
    • RT : Here we are - "Shelf Indulgence" by Ed Potten, a wonderful read, well worth your time: @Lit_Review,
    • 'Like going to a party hoping to get away as quickly as politeness allowed and at 4am finding myself still engrosse… ,
    • 'Neville never shed his sense of being the junior, and perhaps least-deserving Chamberlain.' From the archive, Mic… ,
    Follow Us