by Stephanie Chatfield
On May 2, 1861, Elizabeth Siddal gave birth to a stillborn daughter. It was a lengthy ordeal that must have been both physically and emotionally taxing – her doctor discovered that the baby had died and Lizzie had no choice but to wait for delivery to come naturally, which happened after roughly two weeks.
The overwhelming grief consumed her, and she sank even further into her addiction to laudanum.
In 1862, she was pregnant again.
On the evening of February 10, 1862, Lizzie and her husband Dante Gabriel Rossetti went out for dinner to the Hotel De la Sabloniere with their dear friend, poet Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Afterward, Rossetti left for the night class he taught at Working Men’s College, and Lizzie went to bed. She had taken what Rossetti described as her usual dose of laudanum — he later testified that she had about half a bottle left, and that when he returned home, the bottle was empty.
Upon returning, he removed his boots so we wouldn’t wake her up, only to encounter a labored snoring that was unusual for Lizzie and sparked concern.
In a panic, Rossetti rushed for help, asking their landlady to fetch a doctor. Throughout the course of the night, Rossetti send for three more doctors in an effort to save her. Unfortunately, Lizzie passed away in the early hours of February 11, 1862
Rossetti placed the only manuscript of his poems in her coffin, to be buried with her in what he no doubt intended to be a final loving gesture.
Seven years later, he had her grave opened in order to publish them. That unsettling act cemented her image in literary history — not as a creator in her own right, but as a tragic muse entombed with her lover’s words, a gift reclaimed to feed his own needs.
Since she was a habitual user, it’s obvious the laudanum she took that night was self-administered, but it’s unclear whether her death was intentional.
Where things begin to get murky is when the suggestion of a suicide note is introduced. I tend to believe that the overdose was accidental, in which case, there would not have been a note. But stories about a note that have evolved over time.
Was there a note?
- A suicide note was not mentioned at the inquest into Lizzie’s death, although to avoid the stigma of suicide, that may not be surprising.
- The existence of a note seems to have been mentioned first (in print) in poet William Bell Scott’s memoirs, but removed by William Michael Rossetti during pre-publication editing.
- Violet Hunt wrote about it quite dramatically in her 1932 book, Wife of Rossetti, a biography that reads more like a novel, barely cites any sources, and grounds most of its claims on hearsay.
- In response to Violet Hunt’s biography, Helen Rossetti Angeli – Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s niece and Ford Madox Brown’s granddaughter – publicly denounced Hunt’s claim, firmly stating there was no note.
- Angeli would amend her stance later in her own book, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Friends and Enemies, but said that the note was vastly different than Hunt’s description and simply asked that Rossetti take care of her brother Harry.
- Some stories claim she pinned the note to her nightdress, others say it was found on the table beside her bed.
For further reading about Siddal’s death and exhumation, see the transcript of the Inquest into Her Death, The Worst Man in London: Charles Augustus Howell and Siddal’s Exhumation, and Hall Caine on the Exhumation. Photos of her gravesite are here.
More about Elizabeth Siddal