author
Emily A. (Emily Augusta) Patmore
1824–1862
A little-known Victorian writer, she is remembered both for her own books and for inspiring one of the era’s most famous poems about marriage and domestic life. Her story also places her close to the Pre-Raphaelite circle, where she became the subject of a portrait by John Everett Millais.
1 Audiobook
The servant's behaviour book : or, Hints on manners and dress for maid servants in small households
by Emily A. (Emily Augusta) Patmore
About the author
Born Emily Augusta Andrews in London on February 29, 1824, she became an English author who also wrote under the pseudonym Mrs Motherly. She married the poet Coventry Patmore in 1847, and her life later became closely tied to Victorian literary history.
She is best known today as the inspiration for Coventry Patmore’s long poem The Angel in the House, but she was more than a literary muse. Emily Augusta Patmore published writing of her own, and her place in the artistic world of the time is reflected in John Everett Millais’s 1851 portrait of her, which links her with the wider Pre-Raphaelite movement.
She died in Hampstead, London, on July 5, 1862. Although her name is often mentioned alongside her husband’s work, she remains an interesting figure in her own right: a writer, a presence in a major artistic circle, and a woman whose life helped shape one of the best-known Victorian ideals.