Clerk Saunders (watercolour with gum arabic and scratching out, on paper)

'Clerk Saunders' is a well-known Border ballad that appears in many early collections, including Matthew ('Monk') Lewis's Tales of Wonder (1800) and Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-3). The first part describes how the Clerk seduces Maid Margaret and is stabbed to death by her brothers when they find them sleeping. In the second part, which seems to be the subject of Siddal's design, the action moves into the sphere of the supernatural. The Clerk returns after death to claim a token of love and Maid Margaret follows him in a vain attempt to share his grave as she has his bed. Siddal's design was conceived in response to a commission that she and Rossetti received in 1854 to illustrate a collection of ballads that their friend William Allingham was editing for Routledge. The scheme in this form eventually fell through, but not before both artists had executed a number of designs.