Jonty Claypole

And they are like the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.

So there's a moment where after Lizzie, who's the sort of good sister, goes and confronts them but refuses to give in, they try and make her eat the fruit.

And she says, no, I'm not going to.

And they do that thing of they suddenly turn very aggressive.

And this is the sort of male behavior women in Victorian England and indeed women now are familiar with.

Men who are very, very charming until they think that a woman isn't interested in them when they turn aggressive.

And so she turns them down.

She says, I'm not going to eat your fruit.

And the poem goes, they began to scratch their pates, no longer wagging, purring, but visibly demurring, grunting and snarling.

One called her proud, cross-grained, uncivil.

These are the things, by the way, that men used to call women if they wouldn't put out, as the phrase used to be.

Their tones waxed loud, their looks were evil, lashing their tails, they trod and hustled her, elbowed and jostled her, clawed with their nails and so on.

So I think the name Lizzie is very, very deliberate.

Also, there's a fetishisation of hair in this poem.

And the Pre-Raphaelites were obsessed by Lizzie Siddle's hair.

This dazzling copper hair.

And in fact, there's a sort of mid-Victorian male obsession with hair.

I noticed in Bleak House, which we're about to launch our new book club into, there's a very sinister character who keeps women's hair in a sack.

underneath his shop.

It's one of many truly dark details in the book.