I enjoyed this very much as a companion to My Grandmothers and I - a factual and well researched account of William Holman-Hunt's life. He was determined to become an artist, over his father's objections, and made it into the Academy after three tries. Later, in the spirit of the Pre-Raphaelites, he journeyed to Syria to paint the people and landscapes of the Holy Land as accurately as possible.

His wives and loves were complicated. He became enamored of Annie Miller, a barmaid who was a model for Hunt and his fellow artists. But she was hardly suitable to be his wife: she came from the lowest of London slums and was iliterate. The charm and exuberance that attracted him were not qualities for the wife of an artist who wished to be accepted into Society. He arranged for her to live in a respectable boarding house and to be educated, at his expense. But Annie lost patience with his promises, and tired of the life he planned for her, and their long engagement ended.

By now Hunt could support a wife, and was able to court and marry the respectable Fanny Waugh (an aunt of the future Evelyn Waugh), one of a family of eight beautiful sisters. Sadly, she died in childbirth, leaving him with a son. Fanny's family took him to raise while Hunt returned to the East to paint. His sister believed she should raise the boy and they became estranged over this.

Fanny's younger sister Edith had, according to her tales to her granddaughter, been in love with Hunt ever since she saw him for the first time. After Fanny died and they met again, he admitted he felt an attraction too. But marriage with deceased wife's sister was illegal. They agreed they would part and never speak again of possibilities. Years passed and their reserve slipped... they married abroad, in defiance of the law. The Waugh family now turned their backs on Edith, as did a few of their painter friends.

This book ends soon after Edith and William marry, after a description of a kerfuffle involving Charles Swinburne gossiping about Dante Gabriel Rossetti that Ford Madox Brown asked Holman-Hunt to smooth over. It amused me because it's exactly the sort of drama my friends have gotten into from time to time. I was sorry the book ended there - I was curious the rest of Hunt's life, and about Edith and William's children who appear in Diana H-H's book as adults. That book contains nothing about who her mother was or why she was absent.

I knew most of his works because I'm interested in the Pre-Raphaelites, but most people who grew up going to Protestant churches know his painting "The Light of the World" with Christ knocking at a barred door. ( )