The Love School is a BBC television drama miniseries originally broadcast from 22 January to 26 February 1975 about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The series was written by John Hale, Ray Lawler, Robin Chapman, and John Prebble, and directed by Piers Haggard, John Glenister and Robert Knights. The drama was a significant influence on the subsequent 2009 series Desperate Romantics. It was also the basis of the historical novel of the same name by Hale.
In 1848, social unrest abounds. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a secret group of young artists, forms in order to take on the sclerotic Royal Academy. The original three members add four friends to their ranks.
Art critic John Ruskin and his wife Effie travel to Scotland with John Everett Millais, a PRB leader. Millais falls in love with Effie and discovers that the Ruskins' marriage is in fact a sham.
Millais has married Effie after the annulment of her first marriage. William Holman Hunt and Millais both become successful artists.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's life and relationships become complicated, especially after the tragic death of his wife Lizzie.
Rossetti acquires a follower in William Morris but his life is troubled by drug addiction, and he becomes increasingly isolated.
Pre-Raphaelitism begins to disintegrate when Morris adopts a new ideal in socialism.
