Category: Academic
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Finding Emma Sandys
A few years ago I wrote a post about Emma Sandys, and how little seemed to be known about her. Finally, I have got round to working on her a bit more, and today, I feel a little bit closer to her! But first, a brief biography. She was born Mary Ann Emma Negus Sands,…
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The Poems of Evelyn De Morgan
I have been working for a little while now on the poems of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919) and am delighted that the book is now published. A few years ago I discovered that the De Morgan Foundation held manuscripts – notebooks, mostly – of the young Evelyn Pickering, which included poems, stories,…
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William Morris’s The Earthly Paradise
William Morris’s The Earthly Paradise is an irresistible text: it is rich in language, meaning, ideas, philosophy, history and also topics and themes which still resonate in the 21st century. But it is very long, and is divided into ‘books’ which correspond to months, so what better way to read it than by reading a…
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Visiting Red House
Despite my fondness for William Morris, I’d never visited Red House (National Trust) before, despite its status as the family home built by Philip Webb with Morris’s approval. I gave a talk there recently and found it much easier to get to than expected (despite floods, engineering works and rail strikes!) and it was well…
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Treatment in the nineteenth-century lunatic asylum
The nineteenth and early-twentieth century asylum was most likely to be run on a system of ‘moral management’. The term ‘moral’ is used here in a somewhat insidious way: it refers to a system of bodily and mental health, but has its roots in a conventional Victorian morality which insisted upon self-discipline above all else.…
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Beyond the Brotherhood: The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy
It seems a long time since we could travel to visit exhibitions, but two months ago I was able to attend the opening event for the ‘Beyond the Brotherhood’ exhibition at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth. After a crazy couple of months, I have been revisiting it via the excellent catalogue, which…
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The nineteenth-century lunatic asylum
I’ve spent some time researching lunatic asylums, so I thought I’d post some of my findings here in a series. Please note I’m using the language of the time (‘lunatics’, etc)! The modern view of the nineteenth- and early-twentieth century lunatic asylum is coloured by dramatic stories of wrongful incarceration and Gothic buildings in which…