julia margaret cameron's women contains 63 different plates representing magnificent victorian portraits photographed back in 1864 to 1874. every plates are monochromed in sepia or black & white. ...5 pages are consacrated to her models biographies,her favorite ones like: julia prinsep jackson (mother of virginia woolf & painter vanessa bell), mary ann hillier (her maid,cameron described her as one of the most beautiful & constant of her models.) , Alice Pleasance Liddell (aka the little girl from whom Lewis Caroll wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in 1865)..etc.. - 5 other pages focuses on cameron's Literary & mythological subjects:from "DAPHNE" (nymph pursued by the god Apollo) to "OPHELIA" (from shakespeare's "Hamlet")..all are well explained and presented...the rest of the 242 pages are dedicated to margaret's life, her debuts,her Illustrations to tennyson's "Idylls of the king", her different relations... - all fans of painting & photography should own this book! it is a unique reference! cameron was and still is one of the greatest portrait photographers of all time...

other interesting books in this genre: "Reflections in a looking Glass" a centennial celebration of Lewis carroll. , "Photo Historica" landmarks in photography , "a new history of photography" edited by michel frizot.

This amazing book is well worth the investment. These photos still have the power to knock one over the head with their dizzying beauty. Too often people look to the men who made up the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood for an ideal of the Victorian woman. For a fresh look, one should explore Victoriana through the eyes of the women themselves. Cameron's photography is the perfect counterpart to Christina Rosetti's poetry. Enjoy.

Most photographs here were made in ca. 1870. Looking through the book, I imagine that at that time photography was still so new, so unprecedented, that no one yet had idea of what portrait photography was to become. An art? Or a detailed recording of what the eye perceives? In this ambiguity, Julia Margaret Cameron shows herself in this volume to be great artist, a portrait photographer second to none. In the faces of her women, I can see stories and history as recorded nowhere else.

Most notable is the series of images of Julia Jackson. (She also appears on the front and back covers.) One can see her life evolve over the time span of the photos. These images become even more interesting upon learning she was mother of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. So here at last is the real Mrs. Ramsey.

This is by far the best book I've read in the last few years. I picked it at random from the library, but I didn't want to take it back when I was finished with it. As an aspiring anthropologist, being put smack in the middle of so many different women's lives from all over the world at all time periods of the twentieth century was absolutely fascinating. I've made a list of all the selections that have inspired me enough to make me want to read the book it was taken from, and the list is two pages long! The book is an excellent montage of so many different walks of life, I think it should win some kind of award for it's superb editing. I would recommend this book to anybody interested in other women's lives, and to any men wondering how we really think and feel.

Jazz Cleopatra is a slim volume (269 pages of text, plus notes and bibliography) but clearly a well-researched and well-written one. Rose's extensive notes and bibliography give a samll idea of how much thinking went into the writing of the book, and indeed it has the feel of something which has been carefully considered.

It's worth emphasizing that the subtitle of the book is "Josephine Baker in Her Time". I stress the point because I think that the reader should expect that this is not so much a biography (although biography is an important element) as it is a contextual portrait. Rose spends a lot of time on Baker not just as a person, but as an icon and the book is often closer to cultural criticism than "true" biography.

This isn't a bad thing, necessarily, it's just that I was looking more for biography and probably more for personality and that's not what Rose had to offer.

I honestly must admit I was surprised - schocked in fact - with seriousness,love and depth this author approached a subject which would many consider lightweight.As a difference from many other celebrated biographers who are basically just listing recording dates,Rose goes into describing the atmosphere around Paris in 1920's,what a half nude black woman on the stage meant to european audience at the time,all of a sudden we have discussion about Picasso,Hitler,De Gaulle and the whole book is just simply fascinating.On many occasions there were clever observations about life - I find myself seriously thinking about my own life while reading a book about a person who doesnt have anything in common with me - its almost a biblical saga about a strong individual,a fighter and survivor in a world that objects to anybody who stands above the crowd.Baker could have just used her sex appeal to get rich and built herself from the poverty,instead she changed the world around her and used all her energy to spread humanity wherever she went (it made me think about Lennon lyrics:"you may say I'm a dreamer,but I'm not the only one").Rose doesn't just idolise Baker,there is a understanding that such a strong personality was as powerful to audience as overbearing to people close to her in private life,which seems to be a destiny of anybody with a big influence.
Instead of another entertainer-biography I stumbled upon serious and deep analysis of fascinating character,brave and honest,sensitive woman.Bravo!

Josephine Baker was a unique entertainer, we all know, but she was also an amazing woman off stage.

This fascinating biography satisfies not only the interests of musicians and jazz fans but also those readers interested in Black history and the lives of remarkable women. I read it twice, I loved it so much. Good sense of mid 20th century Paris, and other details really do come alive.

One day in an education class, my professor asked how many female artists can you name? Granted none of the people in the class were art majors but at most we came up with two, Virgina Woolfe and Mary Casset. Many people could not name any female artists. I found it astounding that in the history of western art, I could only think of two women painters. Taking the suggestion this professor, I decide to read the book "Anonymous was a woman" by Mirra Blank. I found the book intriguing and was impressed at its unveiling of how important domestic crafts like samplers and quilts were to women in the late eighteenth century and nineteenth century. The book has great photographs and anecdotal information that gives insight to the female mind of this time period. The images include quilts, velvet, and watercolor paintings. Excerpts are taken from the diaries of famous women like Louisa May Alcott and anonymous women who have been forgotten. The author also includes certain male points of view with repect to proper female conduct and love. I thought this book was great at revealing how many female artists there have been and their contribution to the American landscape.

Why did Phyllis Rose write this book? In her prologue, she states her opinion that marriage is the most creative thing we do. She says that marriages ("parallel lives")are fascinating because they "set two imaginations to work constructing narratives about experience presumed to be the same for both." Then she set out for 300+ pages in what amounts to little more than a gossipy complian-fest of "He did" - "She did". We get to hear all the wives gripes about their sexless, loveless marriages, then we get to hear about all the mens' whines about their frigid, shallow wives. Never once does Rose entertain the idea that one or more of her subjects may have been homosexual and were using marriage as the conventional way to get through their lives. Nothing does she tell us of what made these marriages so particularly and peculiarly Victorian - I know plenty of people right now in the year 2002 who have arranged their lives in much the same way as these Victorians.

Reading this book, all I could think of how it reaks of 1980's feminism: self-centered, self-serving. Rose flips sides faster than a pancake when it's convenient to her argument (whatever that may be.) One minute she cries for a woman who must marry a distateful man just so she can get out of her parents' house, but she doesn't find it strange that a woman's brother stick his nose into the private business of her relationship with other men. Go figure!

After finishing the book, I could only ask myself: Why was this book written???

Phyllis Rose' Parellel Lives is an exploration of marriage: what makes a marriage, how marriages operate, the power struggles within marriage, the impact of patriarchy on marriage, sexuality within marriage and many, many other issues.

Ms Rose uses Victorian marriages to discuss these issues. This is a perceptive move. Our current culture, filled with self-help manuals and marriage classes, is in some ways less tolerate of eccentricity, more assured about how a successful marriage should operate. The tensions of sexuality, power and so on have been addressed, if not by individuals, within the culture and media at large. But Victorians did not have such an outlet. Dickens didn't know he was experiencing a well-documented male mid-life crisis when he engineered he and his wife's separation. This lack of self-knowledge makes the exploration of such marriages a fascinating study in human nature.

The book is split into the marriage biographies of five couples with two sections on Jane Welsh and Thomas Carlyle. A refreshing aspect of Ms Rose's Parallel Lives is that she is exploring these marriages from a feminist viewpoint that encompasses compassion for the man as well as for the woman. Her prose style is lively as she delves into the separate personal stories of her couples and how their personal stories influenced the marriage as a whole.

The book suffers a bit at the end. Ms Rose pulls back and attempts to apply general theory to her analysis. This is mostly unsuccessful. Ms Rose's gift lies in the personal--her ability to unravel this or that particular marriage and how this or that particular marriage was influenced by the problems of patricarchy--not in a general ideological stance that would supposedly solve those problems.

Recommendation: An intelligent and perceptive read. Buy it!

Wonderfully balanced and perceptive, this probing look at five unconventional Victorian marriages provides many insights into the sexual mores of that era. The section on the novelist George Eliot is especially haunting.

Ms Rose is without a doubt a talented writer, but her work here is tediously self-indulgent and trite and sheds very little light on Proust, or indeed on his effect on her. Give it a miss and read the master! I don't think I'll be visiting Ms Rose's other work anytime soon...

Phyllis Rose introduces the reader to Proust. Because of this book I was inspired to start reading In Search Of Lost Time and possibly I will not stop for at least a year, if ever. Phyllis Rose encourages and inspires the reader to have their own personal and rewarding remembrance of things past and to recognise that the mighty and the modest share in what it is to be human. .

If you have read Proust, or attempted to, or mean to someday... Ms. Rose will not let you down. I love how she sees Proust...and how others feel he "doesn't apply" and miss the point. How many times have we been told that some great writer is "passe" or "impossible" or just not trendy enough? (those who sneer may just feel unequal to the task of reading a particular author) Rose takes it slowly, she weaves Proust into her daily life. It is a brisk read, but I found myself stopping & sharing bits with others. I hope to re-tackle Proust soon! I have been inspired.