The Pre-Raphaelites first appeared in 1984 as the catalogue of the highly succesful exhibition mounted by the Tate Gallery that year. The book, which has been out of print ever since, remains the most comprehensive account of this important movement in British art. It concentrates on the vital years from 1848 (when the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed) to 1860 but also includes a substantial groups of works from the following twenty years, a period in which the movement took new directions.

The full range of Pre-Raphaelite painting is represented, from the 'hard-edge' style of Millais's early work to the sensuousness of Rossetti's and Burne-Jones's painting in the 1870s.