Edward Burne Jones: A Biography

Edward Burne-Jones is perhaps best known for his King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid and as the designer of stained glass and tapestries for Morris and Co., the firm set up by his lifelong friend William Morris. This biography traces Burne-Jones's life, and suggests a deeper understanding of his work. It tells of his beginnings as a solitary child in Birmingham, the only son of a not too successful picture-framer, and his formative years at Oxford where, with Morris, he felt the powerful influence of Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites. In 1860 he married the nineteen-year-old Georgiana Macdonald. This book describes their life together, Georgie's constant loyalty throughout his periods of illness and his infatuations with striking young women, and his love for his children: he was slave to his beautiful daughter, Margaret, and bewildered by his difficult son, Phil. But Burne-Jones was, in fact, a very sympathetic man, and a great wit. This can be felt in his caricatures of Morris and others at work and play, and his friendships, not only with fellow artists but with his patrons John Ruskin and Arthur Balfour, with Oscar Wilde and Henry James, and his nephews by marriage, Stanley Baldwin and Rudyard Kipling.