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Book Cover for: Pre-Raphaelites in the Spirit World: The Séance Diary of William Michael Rossetti, J. B. Bullen

Pre-Raphaelites in the Spirit World: The Séance Diary of William Michael Rossetti

J. B. Bullen

This book includes two previously unpublished works that offer insights into the Pre-Raphaelites and the cult of spiritualism. William Michael Rossetti's séance diary, a recording of twenty séances he attended in the 1860s, and a letter to Dante Gabriel Rossetti from spiritualist medium Anna Mary Howitt are presented with extensive introductions.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publis
  • Publish Date: Dec 22nd, 2021
  • Pages: 176
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.40in - 0.58lb
  • EAN: 9781789974423
  • Categories: Spiritualism - GeneralHistory - GeneralAncient - Greece

About the Author

J. B. Bullen has had a long-standing interest in the relations between the arts in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. He is the author of (among other books) The Pre-Raphaelite Body (1998), and Rossetti Painter and Poet (2011). He is a Visiting Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford.

Rosalind White is a Victorianist based at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her PhD thesis, In My Mind's Cabinet, is an intimate exploration of natural history that examines the lives of its practitioners beyond the impact of conventional watersheds. She has been published in the Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies and the collection A Cultural History of Insects in the Age of Industry (2021).

Lenore A. Beaky is Professor Emerita, LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. Her PhD thesis, The Letters of Anna Mary Howitt Watts to Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1974, Columbia University), explored Howitt's personal and professional life as a painter and spiritualist. She has published articles in the Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies and the volume Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia (1990).

Praise for this book

This is a new and scholarly study of William Michael Rossetti's séance diary, which is a fascinating first-hand source for the Rossetti brothers in the 1860s and offers a new perspective on the relationship between the Pre-Raphaelite circle and the spiritualist world. (Jan Marsh)

As quirky and unsettling as the table-turnings it documents, this meticulously edited and annotated séance diary features guest-appearances from the spirits of John Polidori, Elizabeth Siddal and Gabriele Rossetti, among many notable others. Essential reading for anyone interested in the Pre-Raphaelites, Spiritualism, and the Victorian paranormal. (Dinah Roe, Reader in Nineteenth Century Literature, Oxford Brookes University)