The (Mostly) Complete Poems of Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal

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Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862) was a painter and poet whose work, though largely forgotten, is filled with a power and beauty ahead of its time. As a significant figure in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, she existed both in front of the pen and behind it, leaving behind a haunting legacy of artistic influence that continues to inspire those fortunate enough to discover it.

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Discover the poignant and powerful voice of a forgotten Victorian poet in The (Mostly) Complete Poems of Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal.

This beautifully produced hardback volume is the first popular edition to bring together all fifteen known, complete poems of Siddal (1829-1862), a significant figure in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who never saw her work published during her lifetime.

Elizabeth Siddal was a multifaceted creative — a Renaissance woman trapped in the long shadow of Queen Victoria. In the field of painting, she enjoyed considerable success, as one of the Pre-Raphaelites, acquiring the patronage of England’s foremost art critic, John Ruskin, who dubbed her a genius and paid her a fortune for the right of first refusal to buy her new works. But her poetry career was ended before it had a chance to begin, cut short by her death from an overdose of laudanum at the age of 32, leaving behind a maelstrom of papers dubbed “too hopelessly sad for publication”. 

Her work languished for a century and a half before slowly being recognized as sophisticated, majestic, powerful and anything but too hopelessly sad for publication. Collected here for the first time in a widely available popular reading edition are all 15 of Siddal’s known poems presented in a beautiful volume that does justice to her memory and her talent. This is a companion volume for “This is Only Earth, My Dear: Images by Trillian Stars and Kyle Cassidy with poems by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal.”