Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel

Before the modern supermodel, there was Lizzie Siddal, whose image captivated a generation-and whose life ended in a laudanum-soaked suicide. Saved from a working-class existence by Dante Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelite artist who was her lover, Siddal became recognizable throughout Victorian Britain as Millais's doomed Ophelia and Rossetti's beatified Beatrice. Lucinda Hawksley looks behind the celebrated muse to reveal a talented woman in her own right.