Author Description

This classic work from 1904 is a unique and comprehensive source: a fascinating account of the life and times of the painter and decorative artist Edward Burne-Jones, written by his wife Georgiana shortly after the artist's death. The account begins with Burne-Jones's childhood and schooldays in Birmingham and his student days at Oxford, and moves on to describe his lifelong friendship with William Morris, the important influence on him of Rossetti, and his development as one of the most important late Victorian artists and a key figure in the Aesthetic Movement. Georgiana Burne-Jones lets her characters speak for themselves whenever possible, quoting extensively from letters, conversations and reminiscences. Burne-Jones was a formidable scholar and antiquarian and took a lively interest in current events; the memoirs include his reflections on a wide range of topics, such as art and artists, contemporary politics, education, the future of science and the art of living. The Memorials are therefore much more than just a biography. In recording Burne-Jones's many friendships with artists and such literary figures as Ruskin, Browning, Swinburne and George Eliot, the author sheds important light on the whole cultural climate in which Burne-Jones was working. This new edition of the Memorials, which have been long out-of-print, will be of great interest to scholars and non-scholars alike, who will find in the work a lively portrait of a fascinating man. As John Christian writes in his introduction to the new edition, this is 'a portrait which has few real parallels in the history of British art... It is a book that keeps well..., bears re-reading and seldom fails to come up with some profound idea.'