In 1890, the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones finished a monumental series of paintings inspired by ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Greeted with ecstasy by the public, it sold for a record 15,000 guineas and made the artist a rich and famous man.
Told by the voices of four extraordinary women – the wives and mistresses and muses of the famous artists of the Pre-Raphaelite circle – BEAUTY IN THORNS tells the story of love, desire, obsession and tragedy that lies behind the creation of this famous depiction of Sleeping Beauty.
Discovered working in a milliner’s shop, Lizzie Siddal became one of the most famous faces of the early Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, modelling for paintings by Rossetti and Millais (she is his famous Ophelia). She and Rossetti began a passionate and turbulent affair. Heart-broken by his infidelities, Lizzie took refuge in laudanum. As she lay dying, Rossetti promised to marry her if she would only recover. They were married in 1860, but the birth of a dead child caused Lizzie to sink further into depression and addiction. She died of an overdose in 1862. Rossetti famously buried his poems with her but later had her exhumed to retrieve the manuscript.
Jane Burden was discovered by Rossetti and Burne-Jones in Oxford, and became one of their most striking and famous models. She married William Morris, but began an affair with Rossetti after the death of Lizzie Siddal. He painted her obsessively, but his guilt over the death of his wife cracked his mind, and he went mad. Jane had to choose between her love for him, and that of her two young daughters.
The daughter of a God-fearing Methodist minister, Georgie met Ned Burne-Jones when she was eleven. He awoke her to a new world of art and poetry and beauty, and she shared with him her favourite fairy tale, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, which inspire him to create some of his most beautiful paintings. Georgie married Burne-Jones at the age of nineteen, after a four-year engagement. The early years of their marriage was idyllic, but in 1864 Georgie contracted scarlet fever, which brought on the premature birth of her second child. Her third child –
a daughter named Margaret – was born in 1866, the same year as Burne-Jones began a
passionate and ultimately calamitous affair with his model, the beautiful and fiery Maria Zambaco.
The third child born to Edward and Georgie Burne-Jones, after the tragic death of their second son. She was a shy and reserved child remarkable for her beauty. As she grew, she too found herself in demand as a model for the Pre-Raphaelites, but struggled with the unwanted attention. In 1888, she fell in love with the Scottish writer, John William Mackail, but dared not tell her father. He was obsessively working on his painting of her as the Sleeping Princess in his Briar Rose series, and was afraid of losing his muse. Margaret had to find the strength to
defy her father and marry the man she loved.
I have just finished the first draft of the novel, with a publication date of August 2017.
Lizzie Siddal Rossetti (b. 1829 – d. 1862)
is one of the key characters in my novel
I've begun writing my new novel, The Blue Rose.
it's always really thrilling to start putting words down. I've been thinking and planning and day-dreaming this novel for about three months now (I began work on it on Sunday 23rd July, on the night of the new moon).
For those of you who have not been following my creative journey with this novel, here is a brief outline:
The Blue Rose is a historical novel for adults set in the late 18th century and moving between France during the 'Terror' of the French Revolution and Imperial China, a mysterious and scarcely discovered land of mandarins with long curving fingernails and concubines with bound feet. The book is inspired by the true story of a quest for a blood-red rose that blooms even in winter.
This is a picture of Rosa semperflorens, the ruby-red repeat-flowering rose brought back from China in the late 18th century. It is the ancestor of all our modern-day red roses.
In the past three months, I have been to London and spent a week in the Chinese archives of the British Library:
I went to Paris and Versailles where many of my scenes are set:
I travelled to Wales to research the life of my hero, a Welsh gardener (and along the way visited Caerphilly Castle and Tredegar House and Fleur-de-Lis, a most unusually named Welsh village where I imagined my hero may have grown up).
I also visited many 18th century gardens for inspiration for the romantic garden at the heart of The Blue Rose.
Cerney Garden, in the Cotswolds
Coughton Court, in the Cotswolds
I’d already filled up one notebook with timelines, scene outlines, character sketches and research notes, and have now typed up all my thoughts and ideas, then printed them out to stick in a new notebook.
During the last few months of thinking and day-dreaming and planning, a few of my ideas have changed. I had initially imagined my heroine living in a chateau in the Loire Valley. I even visited the Loire last year to get some ideas and inspiration. I had a very clear idea of what the chateau looked like, however, and nothing I saw seemed close enough. Then one day someone posted a photo of a chateau in Brittany on Facebook and it looked so much like what I imagined my heroine’s home to look like that I had to go and read up about it. It’s called the Chateau de Trecesson and it sparked so many ideas for me that I had to move my story from the Loire to the Paimpont Forest in Brittany, a place deeply steeped in Athurian mythology. I also changed my heroine’s name from Rosemunde to Viviane. As soon as I had the right name for her, she came to life in my imagination.
The French actress Marine Vacth who looks how I imagine my heroine Viviane would look
My character outline for Viviane
Brittany in the time of the French Revolution
Chateau de Trecesson in Brittany
The Welsh actor Aneurin Barnard, who is my visual inspiration for my hero David
I began writing on Friday October 20th (again on the time of the new moon) and now I am aiming to write one chapter every week (that’s about 4,000 words). There will be weeks when I simply cannot manage it, but I’ll try.
So far my word count is 5,665 words and so its very much early days … however, once I get into the flow those words will start piling up fast.
Want to know more about The Blue Rose? Read about the first inspiration for the novel.
