There can't be many parents who nurture the fervent hope their daughter will grow up to be a muse: to the modern ear, the word suggests a neurasthenic beauty lying on a chaise longue, a vision of supreme erotic passivity. As Francine Prose's nine biographical studies reveal, however, they need not be attractive but empty vessels. In the case of Lizzie Siddal, whose relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti left "an artistic legacy that speaks to its audience in the language of the gifted teenage contributor to the high school literary magazine", Prose tries to show a "brave and unconventional Victorian woman" rather than a laudanum-sticky cipher. Writing about Yoko Ono and John Lennon, she asks: "Who was the artist, and who the muse?" By digging into the mythology that surrounds the "golden afternoon" where Lewis Carroll created Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for "child-friend" Alice Liddell, Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé's hike up the Monte Sacro or Gala and Salvador Dalí's passionate frenzy in a hotel near Marseille, Prose shows the currents flowing between these remarkable people, dissecting the legends to reveal their messy human hearts.