In The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal, first published fifteen years ago, Jan Marsh enlarged on the life of one of the subjects of her earlier work, Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, and delineated the true story of Elizabeth Siddal as an artist in her own right separated from the ubiquitous historical images. Examples were drawn from the Freudian revolution in the 1920s, the cinematic melodrama of the 1930s, the social awakening of the 1940s and the sexual liberation of the 1960s. Each of these eras fostered its own Elizabeth Siddal myth, and in the process the coppery-haired poet and painter changed from suicidal waif to ideal gentlewoman to feminist. Re-issued and with a new introduction, and following the success of Desperate Romantics, the BBC's series on the Pre-Raphaelites last year, Marsh brings The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal up to date.
