Exclusive interview with author Dr. Suzanne Fagence Cooper and a review of her new novel about Effie Gray and the Scandal around he
Rating: Three Stars
“We see her face, and the faces of her sisters in some of the most haunting pictures made by John Everett Millais, but we seem to know very little about her…just myths and rumors,” says Effie author Dr. Suzanne Fagence Cooper.
“Florence Nightingale, for instance, gossiped that Effie had 27 offers of marriage while she was still a teenager…so what made men fall in love with her? I have been intrigued by Effie’s story ever since I started to study 19th century painting, over twenty years ago. She was married to two giants of the Victorian art world. Her first husband, Ruskin, was a damaged genius, and her second, Millais, was a handsome rebel.”
In Effie, nineteen-year-old Effie Gray marries John Ruskin in 1847, a leading art critic of the time. Unfortunately for Effie, John has idealized her as the child she was when they first met and doesn’t consummate the marriage. Effie is able to get her marriage annulled at a time when it was next to impossible to get divorce. She marries the man she’d fallen in love with, the pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, Ruskin’s former protégé.
Effie’s life is full of romance, tragedy and ambition. The book Effie is a third-person biography with lots of facts, not a light novel using the facts to tell the story. While having the details is great, it would have been more engaging as a novel. Cooper describes Victorian women’s struggles and the fight for their rights, an area in which Effie was a trailblazer. She fought for her freedom from an unhappy and unfulfilling marriage so she could marry the man she loved. Effie also influenced the work of both Ruskin and Millais.
“The most exciting moment was when I had a call, out of the blue, from the actor Greg Wise saying that he and his wife Emma Thompson were writing a film all about Effie and her failed marriage to Ruskin. At the time it felt as though I was the only person in the world who really understood this Victorian lady. Suddenly I realized there were other people out there who were also fascinated by Effie, her resilience, her beauty, and who wanted to introduce her to a wider audience.”
“When I contacted Effie’s descendants, one of them said he had some letters that had never been read by anyone outside the family,” says Cooper. “I thought he was talking about a dozen or so. He said he would send them up to the Tate Gallery so I could read them in peace. When I arrived, I was completely bowled over. There was a whole trolley full of files, fifteen fat parcels of letters from Effie and her parents, her sisters, her children…sent from Scotland, Australia, the South of France. It was a gold mine, a biographer’s dream. Here was Effie’s whole life in letters. And no-one had looked at them for a century.”
Cooper’s previous books were written while she was a researcher and curator at the V&A Museum in London for twelve years. “During that time I wrote several books, bringing together my work on exhibitions, and my discoveries in the 19th century collections,” says Cooper. “My first book, The Victorian Woman, featured many images in the Museum’s archives which had never been published before. Pre-Raphaelite Art in the V&A Museum offered a fresh account of these pioneering Victorian artists.”
Cooper moved to Yorkshire several years ago with her husband and family. Cooper generally writes at home, but her research and lecturing often takes her to London. She was born in Surrey, just south of London.
Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais by Suzanne Fagence Cooper. Trade Paperback, 288 pages, Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin; First Edition edition (May 8, 2012) Language: English ISBN: 9781250016256 $15.99
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