"I apologize again for my boldness, but I must tell you that you're the
most beautiful girl in Oxford. Maybe in all of England. I have to put
you in my painting."
With these words, the scandalous,
wildly talented painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti changes
seventeen-year-old Jane Burden's life forever. Jane's gaunt, awkward
figure and grave expression have cemented her reputation as the ugliest
girl in Oxford. Raised by a stableman on Holywell Street -- the town's
most sordid and despicable slum -- Jane is nearly resigned to marry
in-kind. But when she meets Rossetti at the theater, he sees beyond her
worn, ill-fitting dress and unruly hair and is stirred by her
unconventional beauty. The charismatic painter whisks Jane into Oxford's
exclusive art scene as his muse, and during the long and intimate hours
of modeling -- draping and tilting, gazing and posing -- Jane finds
herself falling in love.
