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Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais

Suzanne Fagence Cooper

3.88 · Rating details · 632 ratings · 107 reviews

The Scottish beauty Effie Gray is the heroine of a great Victorian love story. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, she found herself trapped in an unconsummated union. She would fall in love with her husband’s protégé, John Everett Millais, and inspire some of his most memorable art, but controversy and tragedy continued to stalk her.

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Hardcover, 288 pages

Published June 21st 2011 by St. Martin's Press (first published May 1st 2010)

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Start your review of Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais

May 23, 2017 ❀⊱RoryReads⊰❀ rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography

Wow.
I've always admired Pre-Raphaelite art and I'd heard a few things here and there about Effie Gray, the wife of painter John Everett Millais, but I had no idea that she'd been through so much grief with her first husband, the critic John Ruskin.

Ruskin never consummated his marriage to Effie; he had a taste for slender young girls in early adolescence. "John Ruskin loved young girls, innocents on the verge of womanhood. He became enchanted with twelve-year-old Effie when she visited Herne Hil ...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Erin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, reviewed, read-in-2012, biography-autobiography-memoir

A wonderfully written account of Effie Millais' life and a great depiction of what Victorian England must have been like.
Suzanne Fagence Cooper writes a story using Effie's Letters to and from her family and friends, her and her husbands diaries.

When I first picked up 'Effie' in Waterstones,I was expecting some great love affair-But it's more then that. It's the woman behind the two men she called husband. After finishing the book, I felt an acute sense that I knew Effie and I really felt for ...more

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Oct 27, 2018 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2018, british-literature, memoir-biography, film-only

Just watched a movie based on this three characters, written by Emma Thompson.

A look at the scandalous love triangle between Victorian art critic John Ruskin, his teenage bride Effie Gray, and Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais.

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Oct 10, 2017 Lynn rated it it was amazing

This account is about three prominent people in Victorian England. Effie married a man who was abusive and refused to consummate their relationship. She sued for an annulment which was unheard of at the time. He was an up-and-coming art critic. She and one of her first husband's associates, a famous painter in his own right, fall in love, marry & have 8 children. The book explores these and other close relationships with a watchful eye.

The book is also about what it was like to live in Victorian ...more

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Oct 17, 2013 Rachel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-and-memoirs, nonfiction, art-and-film, audiobooks

I really enjoyed this book! The Pre-Raphaelites are one of my favorite periods of art, so I’m always glad to read a story related to them. Effie Gray was a beautiful educated young woman when she married art critic John Ruskin at age 19. Ruskin had become obsessed with her at age 12, but when he saw her on their wedding night, it was not what he had expected. I did some research on him after reading the book and it looks like he was not homosexual as some have suggested but may have been a pedop I really enjoyed this book! The Pre-Raphaelites are one of my favorite periods of art, so I’m always glad to read a story related to them. Effie Gray was a beautiful educated young woman when she married art critic John Ruskin at age 19. Ruskin had become obsessed with her at age 12, but when he saw her on their wedding night, it was not what he had expected. I did some research on him after reading the book and it looks like he was not homosexual as some have suggested but may have been a pedophile, although looking at child pornography was not illegal or considered dangerous during the Victorian Age. It can be linked through several of his relationships with young girls that he usually fell in love with them at a very young age, but was less interested once they got older. In any case, he did not consummate his marriage to Effie, even though they were married for 6 or 7 years. Effie wanted to get out of the marriage, and so filed for annulment and Ruskin was pronounced impotent. While she was married to Ruskin, she fell in love with Ruskin’s young protégé, John Everett Millais, whom she later married.

This first half of the book was fascinating and very well-done. Although Ruskin is made to look like a crazy pervert and his parents come off rather creepy as well, I’m still very curious about his books as they sound fascinating. It seems that Effie did marry a very brilliant man, but one with almost no social skills. I rather think the author should’ve stopped the book at the halfway mark, but she decided to continue and talk about Effie and Millais’s (or Everett as he was known) marriage, their children, and Everett’s art career with and after the Pre-Raphaelites. There was a lot of talk calling Everett a sell-out after he left the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (or PRB), but I think he was ingenious. Unlike a lot of other artists of the period, he had to support himself and his wife and eight children, so he did whatever he had to do to survive and make money. So yes, his picture style naturally changes from the Medieval/detailed look of his earlier pictures to the more Aesthetic-looking pictures of his later career. Pretty much everyone knows who Millais is from one of his PRB paintings “Ophelia” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_...). I liked how much Effie and her family were and how much she depended on them to deal with her marriages and loss of children. I thought the chapter on Sophy Gray, Effie’s younger Gray, particularly interesting. As to whether or not Sophy and Everett had an affair, I cannot speculate on that. It is intriguing to note that there will be two movies out in 2014 about Effie Gray, though I think I will see the one written by Emma Thompson. 4 stars.
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Aug 09, 2012 Maggie rated it really liked it

This is an excellent look into the life of Effie Grey, who is primarily known for her marriages in the world of Victorian art. Cooper had unprecedented access to Effie's letters, generously lent by the Millais family. For the most part, Cooper makes excellent use of them as she untangles Effie's first, and rather troubled, marriage to John Ruskin. Ruskin's voice is so powerful and so authoritative even all these years later that it is a joy to finally hear Effie, to get her side of the tale. How ...more

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Nov 03, 2020 Rachel rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

The story of Effie throws a light on the world of art in the late 19th century, and the way in which social conditions (relationships, social attitudes, health and politics) impact on the lives of individuals. In this case the individuals move in the higher social classes, but the point is still well made. As always delightful to find small mentions of places I have seen or visited.

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Jul 18, 2018 Brenda Clough rated it really liked it

Excellent, although possibly not organized in the best way. Flashbacks are confusing.

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Jul 18, 2020 Susan Liston rated it liked it

Shelves: pre-raphaelites, art, biography-memoir, own-it, tbr-2019, tbr-2020, read-2020

This is perfectly fine. But I got a little bogged down at times, mainly because I've read lots about these people before (and have seen the Emma Thompson movie) so I already know the overall story, this was a little more detail than I needed at this time. But for a first encounter with the subject, it will certainly fill you in. ...more

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Jun 18, 2019 Sally rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Pretty interesting biography of the wife of John Ruskin; perhaps the first section on their doomed marriage is the most compulsive part. Ruskin remains a total enigma- genius in the art world, a man who liked his own company, liked living with his parents, liked little girls but not women : just why did he saddle himself with a wife? As the (much younger) Effie, ignored and untouched by her husband, takes to socializing, she faces the increasing unpleasantness of Ruskin and his doting parents. A ...more

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Feb 23, 2021 Kim Bjarkman rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Note: This review contains ‘spoilers,’ especially if the reader is not already familiar with the subjects of this historical biography and what happened to them.
* * * *

I found the real-life character of Effie Gray as narrated in these pages to be a somewhat disagreeable and not entirely sympathetic figure, but her story interwoven with Ruskin’s and Millais’ is a fascinating one, expertly stitched together here from exclusive access to the necessary primary documents, chiefly comprised of corre Note: This review contains ‘spoilers,’ especially if the reader is not already familiar with the subjects of this historical biography and what happened to them.
* * * *

I found the real-life character of Effie Gray as narrated in these pages to be a somewhat disagreeable and not entirely sympathetic figure, but her story interwoven with Ruskin’s and Millais’ is a fascinating one, expertly stitched together here from exclusive access to the necessary primary documents, chiefly comprised of correspondence. While Effie Gray, eventually Mrs. Millais, seems to display certain very human vices, such as degrees of vanity, maternal callousness, and class pride (along with less than progressive views on certain subjects and activists of her time), their basis in life’s hardships and the social order are well documented and explored in the biography.

The book provides rare insight into both men of genius in Effie’s orbit, the influential scholar John Ruskin and mesmerizingly talented Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais.

Somehow, Ruskin, Gray’s estranged/disgraced first husband, nevertheless emerges even more shrouded in mystery in his ill-fated journey through these pages, as their story is told incrementally through his wife’s lens. Her early letters exercise considerable discretion, masking the extent and nature of her unhappiness, such that her eventual candor and assertions of lifelong, unhealable psychic scars from their failed union bear witness to a potent blend of secret shame and bolder hindsight. Since Effie’s words hold sway as the primary voice guiding the biography, the overall account establishes John Ruskin as an emotional and psychological abuser, beholden to controlling parents in an oppressive familial closeness that seemingly conspired to smother Effie’s own ambitions, starve her of affection, and extinguish her hopes of marital/personal fulfillment. Meanwhile, Ruskin’s own vehement self-defense (namely, of his virility) stayed sealed for nearly 100 years and was never entered into evidence in the court case that infamously dissolved their marriage, at which time he apparently took the high road; at great personal cost to his reputation and dignity, eager to dispense with the matter, he refused to contest her case, and indeed testified that her “conduct” was beyond “reproach” (p. 126).

Resisting the urge to simplify their complex story, I appreciate how the biographer Suzanne Fagence Cooper takes care not to further impugn Mr. Ruskin’s character, more than history and court verdict have already done. Instead, she even-handedly presents the known details of their passionless, bizarre, unfortunate, and fraught life together and its aftermath, while also conscientiously acknowledging and respectfully honoring Ruskin’s profound contributions, intellectual sensitivity, and gifts of insight as both visionary artistic advocate and critical giant of aesthetic history. Clearly, it was into his rich intellectual (and spiritual) life, not his marriage, that Ruskin poured his passion and soul.

As for John Everett Millais, his art takes center stage throughout much of the narrative and serves as another level of storytelling and family biography in its own right. His groundbreaking early and lucrative later styles are explored, both aesthetically and as shaped by other factors (financial and professional demands). As Beatrix Potter wrote in her journals, his use of focus in signature paintings such as Ophelia (1851/2) is especially striking: “Focus is the real essence of pre-Raphaelite art, as is practiced by Millais. Everything in focus at once, which though natural…produces on the whole a different impression from that which we receive from nature” (quoted in Linda Lear’s Potter biography, p. 63). Fagence Cooper further explains that this movement drew inspiration from medieval paintings in which “[e]ach model, from the smallest leaf upwards, was treated as an individual” (p. 85). She frequently pauses to analyze, thoughtfully, many of Millais’ paintings and drawings with skill and nuance, tracing the evolution -- or in his critics’ eyes, gradual loosening (brushstrokes) and popularizing (subject choices) -- of his work. I only wish more of these were included in the book’s illustrations pages; be sure to read with Internet image access at the ready. You will not find much at all in these pages about Effie’s level of acquaintance with the other Pre-Raphaelites or the women in their lives, such as model/artist Lizzie Siddal (d. 1862). There is passing reference to William Holman Hunt’s rocky relationship with Annie Miller as noteworthy cautionary context in young Millais’ inner circle that informed his own disinclination toward romantic love pre-Effie, i.e. prior to his all-consuming infatuation with the picturesque Mrs. Ruskin (p. 106). Fagence Cooper’s pages devoted to synopsizing the fateful, provocative Pre-Raphaelite/Ruskin alliance left me eager to reread exquisite passages of Ruskin’s own masterwork The Stones of Venice (which intrigued me decades ago when perusing theories of the vibrant grotesque elements in medieval art).

The final chapters probe into the Millais’ marital home in later decades with close scrutiny of their familial and social lives, although shining very little light on their relationship itself beyond the practical arrangement of duties. It is not especially clear the extent to which Effie’s feelings toward John Everett Millais were passionate, either at the outset or in later years, but there is a sense of loyalty and constancy of shared purpose. Children and close extended family encircled this power couple of the art world, and the biography deftly highlights the intricate role that art played as the defining purpose of their palatial residence and the stage on which the Millais children grew up in the public eye. Even in Effie’s successful second marriage, the domestic lives of the Millais and Gray clan remained steeped in past and new layers of personal tragedy, the cumulative effect of which seems to have been endowing Mrs. Millais with a remarkable kind of stoicism. ...more

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Sep 08, 2014 Suzannah rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, history, biography

Such a fascinating book about art and women in Victorian England. I would have liked to go more in depth in some areas, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Effie Gray, from her disastrous first marriage to her life as the wife, social secretary, and business advisor to the greatest painter of the Victorian age. Particularly valuable is Cooper's defence of Millais's development out of the PRB, though I could have done with much more depth.

A great book for any fan of Pre-Raphaelites, Victoriana ...more

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Nov 28, 2016 John rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-and-memoir

This audiobook kept my attention throughout, but I felt the earlier, John Ruskin-centered passages were more interesting than the later parts about Effie's marriage to Millais and her children. However, with the audiobook, you don't get to see the pictures which I assume were in the book (it is in part about an artist and his models) and it is hard to judge whether the author is over-dramatizing incidents. I suspect, however, that much if not all of the description is supported by the parties' e ...more

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Nov 08, 2019 Diane rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Over half term, Peter and I visited Brantwood, John Ruskin''s home overlooking Coniston Water in the Lake District. It was wonderful and we found out so much about Ruskin. I was tempted to buy a biography of his wife Effie Grey. It tells of her life with Ruskin, the annulment of their marriage and her life with her second husband John Everett Millais. I found her story absolutely facinating, very readable and full of information about the lives of Victorian women, the Previous Raphaelite brother ...more

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Apr 13, 2015 Beeds rated it it was amazing

A fluent, easy-to-read biography of this strong, charismatic woman. There are interesting insights into the role of the Victorian wife too and the business-like manner in which Everett Millais was forced to live his life.

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Oct 28, 2012 Girl with her Head in a Book rated it really liked it

Shelves: girls-are-awesome, 2012-challenge, victorian, love-will-set-you-free, non-fiction, love-story, cinderella-story

For my full review:

http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspo... ...more

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Mar 25, 2016 Hannah rated it really liked it

This story would never have been told if a lifetime of correspondence had not been preserved. What a fascinating life Effie had compared to the women of her day.

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Oct 05, 2013 Michelle Long rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography, english-aristocracy, art

Loved this book. Easy to read, engaging, not overly long, and well researched.

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Jan 30, 2014 Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: bios, lauren_willig, that_summer

*Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during "This" Summer: A Lauren Willig Theme Month for the release of That Summer (May 2014)

Effie Grey thought that in marrying the erudite author and art critic John Ruskin that she was entering a life of parties and soirees peopled by the elite of London. Instead this young Scotch girl entered a loveless marriage where she was repeatedly berated and belittled not just by her husband but by her in-laws as well. She suffered throug *Special Content only on my blog, Strange and Random Happenstance during "This" Summer: A Lauren Willig Theme Month for the release of That Summer (May 2014)

Effie Grey thought that in marrying the erudite author and art critic John Ruskin that she was entering a life of parties and soirees peopled by the elite of London. Instead this young Scotch girl entered a loveless marriage where she was repeatedly berated and belittled not just by her husband but by her in-laws as well. She suffered through six years of daily horrors but was willing to accept her fate because it was the life she had chosen. But then John Everett Millais showed up in her life. They had once met at a dance years ago, before their lives took different paths, a meeting Millais remembered well. Those paths would converge when Ruskin took Millais under his wing. The two men working together and even vacationing together meant the young Effie and Everett where often thrown together, perhaps by Ruskin's doing, and love soon stirred in their hearts. Effie had the grounds to do something unheard of in Victorian England. Effie could leave Ruskin because their marriage was unconsummated and therefore was not a real marriage at all. With Everett's encouragement, she took this unheard of step to reclaim her life. But in trading one man for another, was Effie able to get what she wanted or was she stifled yet again?

There are two ways in which this biography could have worked. One would have been to write more in the style of Philippa Gregory and make it a fictionalized biography though as thoroughly based in fact as possible. The other would have been to go more scholarly and linger on details and events. Instead Effie is a book that leaves you wondering why you are reading a book obviously dumbed down for the masses. At times the writing style shifts into a conversational conspiratorial style only to be followed up with dull facts and figures. I just wanted to shake the author and tell her to pick a style, any style. This mishmash of styles gave me extreme dissatisfaction and at times annoyed me to the point of wanting to throw the book. I've read my fair share of art history books and biographies but I don't think I've ever been this bored and frustrated by a book that combines two passions of mine.

At a little over two hundred pages, minus all the appendices, Suzanne Fagence Cooper has written little more then a fleshed out outline for a book. I got no sense of the three people one who this book hinges. In fact, Ruskin, Millais, and Effie, seemed nothing more then cardboard cut outs that occasionally mimicked Victorian stereotypes, but usually remained two dimensional. I'm sorry but two dimensional characters can not, by definition, have passion, so right there the title of the book is wrong. There's a part of me that just wishes to rewrite this whole book. Cooper had unheard of access to documents that have never been seen and the soapy miniseries Desperate Romantics did a better job of making these people flesh and blood in their minimal screen time then a scholar whose life is the Pre-Raphaelites. The fact that the secondary family members and friends were far more interesting then the subjects of the book is a sign that your book isn't working, just so you know for future reference.

But it's not just the writing style that is irksome. The structure of the book is such that I have a feeling I plot out my book reviews more then the author did this book. She relied too much on the gimmickry of using Millais artwork as chapter headings, work that is not included in the book, but more on that later, then bothering to realize her timeline was fucked. There is no way to capture her structure then by saying it's wibbly wobbly timey wimey. I get why Cooper starts out with a little flash forward to Effie leaving Ruskin, because it gives the beginning of the book a thrust, an event, a crisis we are building to. We only cover twenty-seven years in the first eight chapters, most of those concentrating on the six to seven years of Ruskin and Effie together, leaving us five chapters to cover the remaining forty-two years of her life, of which two chapters don't even deal with Effie, the supposed topic of this book. And it's these remaining five chapters I have the most issue with. They jump around and go forwards and backwards over events from different points of view and at different times. I have no freakin' idea of a coherent timeline of events in Effie's life other then she had tons of children. If there was just some through line, some way to sort things out into order instead of writing in such a way that it feels like Cooper forgot to tell part of her story and instead of going back and adding it in in the appropriate spot, she just wrote it into the section of the book she was on even if it made no sense, then I might have at least come to grips with the book.

Adding to the issues of the book making no sense is the fact that Effie and Millais really had too many children, and Effie too many siblings, and couple that with the propensity for using the same names in different branches of the family and you are at sea. Not to mention all the children had nicknames and while Cooper claims she will use the same naming conventions throughout the book, she does not, not that this is a surprise given the grammatical errors and the abysmal mess that is the appendices. I hope she knows there are standards for appendices, you can't sight something differently each time... which ties back in with the naming issues. Effie's eldest daughter is Effie... yep, this wasn't fun, because Cooper would quite often forget to say Effie the younger and so, who knows which Effie was which. There reached a point pretty early on when I realized I didn't care. Also, the multiple Everetts, the eldest son's nickname being Evie, which, when you are reading fast, as you do with books you are growing more and more in hate with and longing for the time when you can write a scathing review, well, it too reads like Effie. But again, what does this all matter. All these people, all their lives, I couldn't care less about any of them as they are portrayed by Cooper.

Now I must finally vent on a personal pet peeve. Graphics! I'll first just state I hate this cover with a passion. You have one of the greatest painters of ALL TIME as your subject and he painted his wife quite often and you have a crappy stock photo of a girl with ill fitting gloves. If there's one thing I learned, Effie loved her clothes and those gloves wouldn't do. Are you trying to appeal to the common demographic who you might lure to see the upcoming movie by making it look not about art? Cause right there, you're pissing me off with underestimating me, but then again, the book was written at such a basic level, perhaps the people who this book appeals to will find it fascinating, ie, not me. Yet this little cover rant isn't my main issue. My main issue is that when you have a book about artwork you MUST include pictures of ALL THE WORK! Yes, there are some pieces featured, but Cooper goes into great detail annoyingly waxing her own views on Millais' work only to not have the work included in the book. You talk about it, we have the right to see it. You can't get printing rights or some other snafu that doesn't let you include the art, you omit that section wherein you tried to color my views of the work with yours. Here's an idea lady, you go off and write your bland pap for the unwashed masses who hope to seem educated in picking up this paltry tome, and I'll avoid you and read fascinating works by real scholars. ...more

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Feb 25, 2018 Voirrey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, read-2018, history-non-fiction

What a fascinating biography of someone who has interested me for some years.

Effie Gray, who found that John Ruskin's ideas of a wife and marriage were not hers; nor would they have been most people's. The author does try to be fair to Ruskin, but his choice to not consummate the marriage, and his preference for his parents' company over his wife's certainly did not make him an ideal husband. Poor Effie who was so embarrassed by her continued virginal state that she couldn't even bring herself What a fascinating biography of someone who has interested me for some years.

Effie Gray, who found that John Ruskin's ideas of a wife and marriage were not hers; nor would they have been most people's. The author does try to be fair to Ruskin, but his choice to not consummate the marriage, and his preference for his parents' company over his wife's certainly did not make him an ideal husband. Poor Effie who was so embarrassed by her continued virginal state that she couldn't even bring herself to tell her doctor when the subject of her childlessness came up.

And I think SFC is right in her conclusion, when reading the extensive letter collection that remains, that Ruskin actually began to go out of his way to besmirch her reputation - encouraging her to attend social events with other men and positively pushing her and J Everett Millais together. He seemed to want her to be shamed and forced to return to her parents so that he could return to life totally as a pampered son rather than an adult male without any blame falling on him.

I thought, too, how brave it was of Effie to insist on the annulment, once she realised it was possible, knowing how difficult it would be for her having to submit to full gynae examinations by more than one eminent gynaecologist of the day and discuss her body, and sex, in a church court.

The commonly held belief that Ruskin was horrified by her having pubic hair is challenged here - and I think the author's conclusion that constantly moving the date of the wedding to suit his parents' travel plans may have meant she was menstruating, is reasonable. But certainly no good reason for his subsequent behaviour!

Her long married life with Millais is covered, too - and the suggestion, often made, that she forced him to 'sell-out' to the establishment examined. On the whole I think this is very fair biography of Effie - she is shown as neither the perfect,wronged, woman, nor the villain; but a flesh and blood woman whose life was not easy, nor anything like she would have pictured it as a girl, and yet it was a life well lived. ...more

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Jan 11, 2021 Linda Lipko rated it really liked it

This is an utterly fascinating book, not only regarding the sexless marriage of John Ruskin and Effie Gray, but most importantly the social roles of women in Victorian age.

John Ruskin wanted to marry the much younger Effie Gray. He toyed and played games regarding his commitment and possible love of Effie. Finally, he tried to put aside his penchant for little girls, but continued to allowed his parents to rule his life and marriage.

Ruskin was the foremost art critic of his time. Well admired an This is an utterly fascinating book, not only regarding the sexless marriage of John Ruskin and Effie Gray, but most importantly the social roles of women in Victorian age.

John Ruskin wanted to marry the much younger Effie Gray. He toyed and played games regarding his commitment and possible love of Effie. Finally, he tried to put aside his penchant for little girls, but continued to allowed his parents to rule his life and marriage.

Ruskin was the foremost art critic of his time. Well admired and an opinion that mattered greatly in the art world. He gradually grew to like and admire the art of the Pre Raphaelite painters, of which handsome, intelligent and accomplished Millais was well respected.

He solidified his role in the Pre Raphaelite world by painting one of the most respected works of Ophelia.

Effie Gray was a mere 19 years old when she married Ruskin, a much older dapper man. On the night of her honeymoon, there was no intimacy. Through the years, this continued. Despite her attempts to woe him, she was told that her body abhorred him and brought no desire to touch her.

In the Victorian courts, it was exceedingly difficult for a woman to seek and win a divorce. With her parents assistance, she fought the courts and gradually won a split from Ruskin on the grounds of impotence.

A man who was attached to his parents, loving only his mommy, the divorce brought scandal to Ruskin.

Ruskin admired the works of Millais, and during a summer vacation to Scotland, Effie's home of origin, he asked Millais to paint him. This too became one of the famous paintings of Millais.

The three shared a small house, and while Millias left them behind most of the day, Effie and Millais grew to admire and love each other. Sensing her extreme unhappiness, Effie disclosed hers was a seven year marriage with no intimacy.

This is a fascinating look of Victorian mores and rules. Effie did win a divorce, and she and Millias married and produced eight children.

If you, like me admire the works of the Pre Raphelites, this is a must read. ...more

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Mar 22, 2020 Margo Lehman rated it liked it

I read this book as part of an Artists in Fiction book club and perhaps this wasn't the best choice for such a club. This is definitely not fiction. The story itself is interesting and I do love art history, especially biographies about artists, if done well. I found myself frustrated that Fagence Cooper didn't even try to write this as a story in any kind of chronological order. I almost gave up on it when she gives away the ending in the introduction. Not everyone knows the story of Effie Gray ...more

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May 17, 2020 shareads rated it did not like it

I don't like the writing style for this book and I don't get it why Effie was popular? I mean, even before her marriage, Ruskin wasn't treat her as a proper young lady, he'd always thought of himself and his family, in some letters, he even called Effie, "My pet" which is rude for me even he might said it as a joke. Is it because of their unconsummated marriage? That doesn't seemed right either, why did he rejected her for some foolish reasons? And why people wanted to know about what they did i ...more

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Feb 02, 2021 Holly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bio, prb-and-associates, history

This was an excellent, historically correct account of the lives of three people so intrinsically linked to the new art movement in the 19th century.

It also reinforces the fact that the current theory of the "oppression of women in the Victorian age" is completely incorrect. There have been strong, intelligent and powerful women all throughout history, it wasn't something that happened suddenly in the 21st century. This type of delusion is what prevents me from identifying as a "feminist".

The P ...more

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Jun 15, 2018 Roryz rated it really liked it

I have known about the strange story of Effie Ruskin Millais, and I appreciated reading the details of Effie’s life from beginning to end.
Overall, a good read, but frustrating because there are no pictures!
The book alludes to Effie and her sisters acting as John Everett Millais muses, but I had to look up each work as it was mentioned. There’s a lot of discussion in the book about how Millais poured out his love for Effie onto his canvases as he fell more deeply in love with her. But, it was mad ...more

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Jun 29, 2020 Andrea Marshall rated it liked it

Fascinating content, but even calling this “narrative fiction” is a stretch. Particularly in the latter half of the book the chapters are peppered with statements such as “He could not help thinking that it would be his turn next” (233) or “Effie [was] thinking about the days when she had been young” (198). If these were extrapolated from diaries or letters, why are they not cited? If they’re pure conjecture why can’t they read “He likely could not help thinking...” or “Effie may have been think ...more

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Jan 29, 2021 Jane Matisse rated it really liked it

Despite my having trouble reading biographies of this length, this was a very interesting read. I appreciate the time and effort put in piecing together the life of Effie Grey and the two men in her life.

Very interesting to see the kinds of changes and scandal she made during her time, and it was just the beginning. I love reading stories about women who didn’t conform to society’s standards at all.

A very real, very sad, very powerful story pieced together by letters and journals and even paint ...more

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Feb 21, 2019 Ginna Kaiser rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This was good at first, I then felt like it would never end.I felt like about 35% of the way in they should have put in what Everett & Effie's relationships was like, how their marriage & children fared, where they ended up, etc. & ended it about 5% later. There were way too many details & I am a details gal. Instead of describing photographs or paintings, couldn't the author have included them?

After around Chapter 8 I just got lost in the long-running details. ...more

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Jan 12, 2021 Debra Gaskill rated it really liked it

This was fascinating! Art critic John Ruskin married Effie Gray, then for six years wouldn't (or couldn't?) consummate the marriage. Effie was eventually granted at annulment by the Church of England, but in an age where women couldn't divorce, largely, this one act had repercussions that followed her and family's life for years. ...more

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Jun 09, 2019 Marcia rated it it was amazing

Couldn’t put this one down once I started it. So many of my “friends” were mentioned here...and I had no idea they had such Intimacies with Ruskin! I really enjoyed diving into some of the pairings of Millais as well as finding the geographical places included in the book.

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About Suzanne Fagence Cooper

Suzanne Fagence Cooper

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Dr. Suzanne Fagence Cooper was educated at Merton College, Oxford, Christie's Education and the Courtald Institute before becoming the Victoria & Albert Museum Research Fellow at Buckinghamshire New University in 1999. Her involvement with the V&A dates back to 1996, when she was appointed curator, and in 2001 she co-curated the V&A's major exhibition 'The Victorian Vision.'

Suzanne's published wor ...more