Amicia and Florence Monckton Milnes

Amicia and Florence Monckton Milnes were the daughters of Richard Monckton Milnes, an author and Member of Parliament who had an enormous influence on Victorian literary taste, with a reputation as 'the first wit in town and a maker of men'. Among the earliest critics to recognize the genius of Keats, he secured a pension for Tennyson and widely proclaimed Swinburne's talent. He was also an ardent collector of erotica, and almost certainly the author of an epic poem on flagellation, The Rodiad. It was Milnes who first introduced Swinburne to the writings of the Marquis de Sade - Swinburne later said that he’d never laughed so much in his life.

Photographed by Camille Silvy on 3 May 1861.