Edward Burne-Jones

by Penelope Fitzgerald

Edward Burne-Jones is well known as a Pre-Raphelite painter, but little is known about his life. Here, in her first book, Penelope Fitzgerald paints a portrait of one of the most interesting and individual of all Victorian artists.

Genres: Art, Biography, History, Nonfiction, Art History

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Penelope Mary Fitzgerald was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 The Times listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". The Observer in 2012 placed her final novel, The Blue Flower, among "the ten best historical novels". A.S. Byatt called her, "Jane Austen’s nearest heir for precision and invention."

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novelist Penelope Fitzgerald started out with this carefully researched biography of Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian artist and close friend of William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, and other artistic and literary figures of the day. Efficiently told, his life history is condensed without giving up nuance or meaning. The author displays a rounded sympathy which takes in other characters in his life— wife Georgina, son Philip, and friend William Morris, for example —to present a full picture of his family and milieu. The book’s illustrations nicely supplement the text, and these days the curious reader can easily find more online. My only real caveat: The author is so circumspect about Burne-Jones’ affair with a model and its effect on his marriage that a reader unfamiliar with those events will not be much enlightened here.

[Angela Cybulski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the casual tone of this autobiography of one of my favorite artists. Fitzgerald is known for her fiction, but this autobiography on Jones was her first book. (She wrote another, too, on the Knox brothers.) She writes with admiration and humor and attends to details other biographers might overlook. Biography with a novelist's eye for character and setting -- fabulous.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive portrait of a talented artist

Penelope fitzgerald gives us an extremely well researched biography of Edward burne jones. From impoverished beginnings to work with William Morris and the pre raphaelites and his own drawings , illuminations , paintings and stained glass , we learn the story of a very unique and talented man. His family life with his wife Georgie was over the years distracted by infatuation with his model and a married woman, but Georgie remained faithful to the end. He had a strange relationship with his son Phil, sending him away to school and later having to bail him out of financial difficulties. But his love for his daughter and grandchildren was obvious. Although extremely famous in his time, his finances had periods of boom and bust. His lifetime work concerned arthurian legends and many of his stained glass windows still exist in English churches.

[Linda Price-Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a prolific and talented artist, I just love the arts and crafts designs he produced with William Morris.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved what I read of it...got about halfway through and then had to move on to other books from the library, knowing that I'll be adding this one to my Amazon purchase / wish list and reading it later.