How We Might Live

William Morris - poet, designer, campaigner, hero of the Arts & Crafts movement - was a giant of the Victorian age, and his beautiful creations and provocative philosophies are still with us today: but his wife Jane is too often relegated to a footnote, an artist's model given no history or personality of her own.

In truth, Jane and William's personal and creative partnership was the central collaboration of both their lives. The homes they made together - the Red House, Kelmscott Manor and their houses in London - were works of art in themselves, and the great labour of their lives was life itself: through their houses and the objects they filled them with, they explored how we all might live a life more focused on beauty and fulfilment.

In How We Might Live, Suzanne Fagence Cooper explores the lives and legacies of Jane and William Morris, finally giving Jane's work the attention it deserves and taking us inside two lives of unparalleled creative artistry.

Lyrical...enjoyable Mail on Sunday
Jane is fortunate in her biographer The Times
Well researched and extensive BBC History Magazine
Fascinating The Field
[Cooper] traces the Morrises' shared and separate lives with clarity and judicious assessment History Today
Fagence Cooper succeeds, against the odds, in restoring some reality to our view of Jane Morris, giving a proper sense of a woman with striking gifts and talents identifiably her own Literary Review
Delightful, accessible and insightful Church Times
Jane Morris's creative influence on her husband's design empire has finally been revealed in a new book [...] the first joint biography of the couple will shine a light on their personal and creative partnership, and reassert the rightful place of Jane Morris - a skilled embroiderer and talented designer - in the history books. Guardian

Suzanne Fagence Cooper is a writer, lecturer and curator, working on 19th & 20th century British art, design and culture.

Her latest book, How we might live: At Home with Jane and William Morris is the first joint biography to show their life-long creative partnership. She looks at the houses and works of art that Jane and William made together, from Red House to Kelmscott Manor. Through newly revealed manuscripts, furniture, wall-hangings and beautiful books, she explores the pioneering life they embraced with their artist friends.

Suzanne was Research Curator at York Art Gallery for the major exhibition, 'Ruskin, Turner & the Storm Cloud' in 2019. Her book To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters shows how Ruskin's art and writings can help up to understand our world differently. She considers his approach to beauty, travel, love and loss, and suggests fresh ways to engage with our natural world and built environment.

Suzanne's biography of Effie Gray was originally published in 2010 as The Model Wife. She looks at the Victorian art world through the eyes of a woman who was married first to John Ruskin, and then to John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. Suzanne worked from family letters, unseen in public for a century.

Effie Gray's marriage to Ruskin inspired a film starring Dakota Fanning, Greg Wise and Emma Thompson, released in 2014.

Suzanne spent 12 years as a curator and research fellow, studying the Victorian collections of the V&A Museum. She has written extensively on the Pre-Raphaelites and Victorian women. She has worked a historical consultant with Ralph Fiennes for his film about Dickens, The Invisible Woman, and has contributed to programmes on BBC Radio and tv, and Channel 4.

She is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and a guest speaker for Cunard.

You can follow her on Twitter @suzannefagence or read her blog at /

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