Having just been to see the Rossettis exhibition at the Tate I was really excited to read this. The exhibition worked hard to include Christina Rossetti and give her her due. It also looked at the women who were wives, muses and often fellow artists. Seeing Rossetti's infatuation with Jane writ large in the paintings he made of her, I was curious to find out more about her in relation to Morris and in her own right. This book tries its best to restore Jane to personhood rather than housewife, muse or sex object and it only partially succeeds in my eyes. That is largely to do with the fact that Jane was a fairly mysterious woman of low birth, who lived a highly unconventional life and did what she could to keep her private life as private as possible. There isn't a lot of evidence to tell us much about Jane except through the eyes of those who knew her and who had their own agendas. It attempts to empower both Jane and William within their life together and their complicated marriage and focuses on the things that worked, rather than the prurient interest of everyone else in what went wrong. I enjoyed most of it. The bits where the author has had to fill in the gaps, less so.