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

Loved the first 10 or so chapters about Effie's life. I feel the chapters regarding some of her daughters and sisters, while interesting, didn't add much to the overall story. They also didn't move in chronological order which made it hard to keep straight where we were in time and in the story of Effie's life.

The writer suggests that Ruskin had seen rough sketches and probably drawn 'bawds', warts, pubic hair and all, and was well aware of pubic hair. This I agree with, but on Demi nudes of beautiful, classically painted 'ladies' for certain genres of painting, there is rarely any body hair at all. Botticelli's Birth of Venus (surely the embodiment of classical womanhood), has not one scrap of body hair. This sort of art and his love for the 'girlish' form tainted his already quirky view of womanhood. In essence good girls and real ladies didn't have hair on their body, only whores did. Period.Personally I think he associated body hair with a precocious sexuality, and a certain 'type' of woman, I truly believe he associated it with street walkers, bawds and ladies of the night - common artist models at this time, and once seeing Effie in all her natural glory, I believe he felt, quite wrongly, that she was not suitable for him at all.I argue this because I don't quite get why Effie would have agreed to a marriage ceremony at 'that time of the month'. She was well aware of reproduction and birth (having helped her mother through more than one confinement). Therefore I feel she was well aware of the monthly cycle and would not have put herself in a potentially embarrassing situation on her wedding night by being 'indisposed' with her monthly cycle. If Effie had not been so au fait with the workings of womanhood, due to her care of her mother during her pregnancies and her 'lyings in', I would go with the notion that it was her monthlies that put him off. But truly I feel John's problem lay squarely on his total lack of ability to reconcile real women in the flesh as opposed to fantasy ones on canvas. In his peculiar eye Effie had failed him by growing a real woman's body. It's that simple and that heartbreaking for a truly wonderful woman I admire greatly.

I loved this book. We are an art history family but none of us knew the real story behind John Ruskin and Everett Millais. This story opened up an entirely new chapter in our art history knowledge.Millais kind of got eclipsed by the Impressionist movement. Even my daughter, who has a postgraduate degree in art history knew very little about him. I was fascinated by the story and enthralled by Effie Gray who, in my opinion, got a "raw deal" from Victorian society.The book was so interesting that I got on Google and rounded up even more about these people. It has been a thoroughly enchanting ride through this period of art history.

Suzanne Cooper has written an interesting biography of one of the peripheral figures of the pre-Raphaelite movement, Eupemia "Effie" Gray, whose claim to fame is that she was married (happily) to John Everett Millais and produced 8 children after 6 years of (unhappy) marriage to John Ruskin, a marriage that was famously unconsummated and which ended with a scandalous annulment.Cooper uses these circumstances to develop some interesting material on the great difficulties for women caught in unhappy marriages in Victorian England. It didn’t help that the Queen herself was deliriously happy with marriage to her cousin Albert and didn’t have much sympathy for women stuck in less cheerful circumstances.As a former museum curator, Cooper leads the reader through the development of Everett Millais’s painting style and movement away from the pre-Raphaelite fold toward more lucrative genre paintings and society portraits. As with most such books, the illustrations are spotty—some are interesting, but many seem just to be space fillers and there aren’t good color reproductions of many of the paintings the reader might wish to see.Cooper’s writing style is rather pedestrian and does not have the warmth nor compelling plot of Claire Tomalin’s The Invsible Woman. So in sum, a useful book, but not a delightful read.

This is essentially a research product, rather than the typical historical biography that includes made up material. It is heavily annotated with a fair amount of clearly noted conjecture, but still reads like a novel. It was the source for the Movie, which pales in comparison to the book, as the movie is a snapshot of a limited period (dramatized) and the book covers an entire lifetime, with many side stories about associates and offspring.

I read this after watching the boring, poorly cast, highly inaccurate movie. This book is far, far better. The author draws almost entirely from primary sources, such as private letters and Efforts diary, but her delivery is far from dry.

I agree with the first reviewer, E.Lad, and wrote most of what I had to say as a comment to that review.This is the powerful personal story of Effie, a story about the art world of that period, and a story about the values of the era. Dr. Cooper's bio of Effie will move you, educate you, and give you something to think about. It's rare to get art history and romance in the same story, but it's all part of Effie's life.I only looked for something about Effie because of the announcement of the movie. Some people thought the story would be uninteresting and make a boring movie; they couldn't be more wrong. If the movie turns out to be poor, it certainly won't be because of the very real Effie story or becuase of Dr. Cooper's bio.Kindle edition

After seeing the movie, 'Effie Gray', I wanted to give this book a try. It's well-written and the movie clearly used this book as reference. If you ever had any interest in John Ruskin, the famous art critic of the 19th century England, this book gives an interesting scope of who he really was, in terms of the difference between his public life and private life.

Wanted to know what happened to Effie after seeing the film.Very enjoyable and informative,thoroughly recommend this book.

Very efficient service and product as described

Very well written and researched.