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Elizabeth Siddal (July 25, 1829 - February 11, 1862)
 Dim phantoms of an unknown ill
Float through my tired brain;
The unformed visions of my life
Pass by in ghostly train; -- taken from Elizabeth Siddal’s poem A Year and A Day
There is no hope of my knowing what ‘unformed visions’ of Lizzie’s life could have passed by in ‘ghostly train’ before her. Some aspects of her life we will never fully know. While I may not ever be able to fill in the gaps, I’ve not yet reached a point where I have lost interest in pursuing Elizabeth Siddal and chronicling information about her here at LizzieSiddal.com. This site is my journey. It is a journey that I started alone, but over the past six years of maintaining this site I have discovered fellow travelers. So while I dedicate my time to these pages, please don’t make the assumption that this is solely my site. It is here for all of us who have been captivated by Elizabeth Siddal, for those of us compelled to search, to read, to follow paths that will somehow help us to understand. We are what I like to call ‘Elizabeth Siddal enthusiasts’. You’re probably one too.
But in case you’re not:
Elizabeth Who? Elizabeth Siddal was an artist’s model who posed for members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Her features helped to create a Pre-Raphaelite ideal. (I say a Pre-Raphaelite ideal because Jane Morris’s features are also a Pre-Raphaelite ideal). She is widely recognized from the Ophelia painting by Sir John Everett Millais and the story of her posing as Ophelia is as famous as the painting itself. Eventually she would pose only for Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who encouraged her pursuit of art. He became her mentor and art tutor, he drew her obsessively, and he loved her. Yet he put off marriage. Lizzie developed a reputation for being ill and at some point she became addicted to Laudanum. After a ten year relationship, Lizzie and Gabriel married. They suffered a stillborn daughter and in 1862 Lizzie died from a Laudanum overdose. Seven years after her death, Gabriel has her body exhumed so that he could recover the poems he had enclosed in her coffin. See About Elizabeth Siddal or view her drawings and paintings.
 Latest: I am in the process of adding portions of Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great that include figures related to the Pre-Raphaelites. I am sharing these from books in my own collection via PDF.: So far I’ve added Great Lovers: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal and Great English Authors: William Morris. Dante’s Vision of Rachel and Leah, Rossetti’s Hamlet and Ophelia, larger images of Study for Delia, Photo of Lizzie, Portrait of Lizzie by DGR, The First Madness of Ophelia, and Lizzie’s last pose. I am both surprised and honored that this site was briefly mentioned in the preface to the second edition of The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal by Jan Marsh.
Note: I’ve had several emails asking about this site’s header image. It is a detail from this drawing of Elizabeth Siddal by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
If you have been fortunate enough to visit Lizzie’s grave in Highgate Cemetery, would you consider sharing a comment about your visit on the Photographs of Lizzie’s Grave page?
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