The Pre-Raphaelite artists were inspired by literature, particularly the work of Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson and William Shakespeare. Many of the artists were also accomplished writers. The Brotherhood’s paintings were often accompanied by extracts from poems and plays: sometimes inscribed into the frames or quoted, at times at length, within the catalogue when they were exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts. The scenes chosen from literature are often romantic or tragic or, like the choice of religious themes, intended to illuminate contemporary issues.

The revival of medieval stories and subjects, notably Thomas Malory’s retelling of Arthurian legend Le morte d’Arthur, were hugely important. For Pre-Raphaelite artists this era expressed the ideals of art and beauty executed with labour and skill. Images of King Arthur’s heroic acts, or the adulterous love of Queen Guenevere and his first knight Sir Lancelot, are captured by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones and others as they reflect on themes of nobility, betrayal and infidelity. Works by Elizabeth Siddal also depict medieval subjects, often empathetically revealing the vulnerable character of the hero or the stoic strength of the women in the narratives.