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William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) was
the only Pre-Raphaelite to work for the Inland Revenue. The Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood's 'catalytic agent' and mythmaker, William kept their
PRB Journal and edited their magazine, The Germ. Radical author
of the Democratic Sonnets, true cosmopolitan, liberal pragmatist,
scholar, writer and romantic, William had a mission to popularise
contemporary art for Victorian audiences. Swinburne thought his
poem Mrs Holmes Grey 'beats everything but Balzac' and artist
John Brett called him 'the best judge [of art] I know after John
Ruskin'. His marriage to Lucy Madox Brown in 1874, documented
by hundreds of surviving letters, was passionate, modern but ultimately
tragic.
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