This long-awaited volume in the Critical Heritage series presents the reception of Christina Rossetti’s work by her Victorian readers and integrates their critical responses with the evidence of her literary life and publication history. It presents the responses in unpublished material – especially in correspondence – alongside public responses in periodicals and books, and it covers responses during the composition and publishing of her works in addition to those that follow her appearances in print. The opinions of her readers – including her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti and her publisher Alexander Macmillan – are integrated with the evidence of Rossetti’s own letters. The volume draws on hundreds of manuscript sources unnoticed in scholarship in order to provide the most accurate available literary biography and publication history of Rossetti, illuminating many aspects of her writing life – including her involvement with the Portfolio society and her relation with Macmillan – which have been misunderstood.
Christina Rossetti: The Critical Heritage sets a new foundation for the study of one of the great English poets. It will be an indispensable resource for scholars and students of Christina Rossetti and Victorian literary culture.
Contents
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION
1 Beginnings
2 Verses (1847)
(a) GAETANO POLIDORI introduces the ‘Authoress’, 1847
(b) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI, 1847
(c) EDWARD ATKYNS BRAY responds in verse, 24 July 1847
(d) DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, [September 1847]
(e) PRISCILLA MADEN WATTS asks about the poet’s ‘headaches’
3 First publications
4 The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Germ (1850)
5 Maude: Prose and Verse
6 The 1850s
7 John Ruskin, 1859-63
8 Macmillan’s Magazine and preparations for a volume of poems
9 Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862)
(a) ARTHUR J. MUNBY, 27 March 1862
(b) ALEXANDER MACMILLAN, 5 and 14 April 1862
(c) ADOLPH and AMELIA HEIMANN, April 1862
(d) London Review, 12 April 1862
(e) [RICHARD HOLT HUTTON], Spectator, 12 April 1862
(f) ALEXANDER MACMILLAN and CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI discuss the periodical reviews, 22 and [23] April 1862
(g) [JOHN WESTLAND MARSTON], Athenaeum, 26 April 1862
(h) English Woman’s Journal, 1 May 1862
(i) WILLIAM BELL SCOTT on ‘the little juvenile book’, 4 May 1862
(j) ALFRED TENNYSON, [April-May 1862]
(k) CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON [LEWIS CARROLL], 12 May 1862
(l) JULIA MARGARET CAMERON, 13 May 1862
(m) Saturday Review, 24 May 1862
(n) Ecclesiastic and Theologian, September 1862
(o) WILLIAM J. STILLMAN, 10 June 1864
(p) [JOHN SKELTON], Fraser’s Magazine, August 1864
(q) [ENEAS SWEETLAND DALLAS], Times, 11 January 1865
‘Goblin Market’
(a) DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI’s ‘revising hand’
(b) WILLIAM BELL SCOTT finds ‘no meaning’
(c) THOMAS DIXON is anxious about ‘allegorical meaning’, [December 1862]
(d) CAROLINE NORTON, Macmillan’s Magazine, September 1863
(e) Round Table, 21 July 1866
(f) [HENRY MORLEY], Examiner, 8 October 1866
(g) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI disagrees with LAURENCE HOUSMAN, March 1893
(h) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI disagrees with EDMUND GOSSE, June 1893
(i) MACKENZIE BELL and WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, May-June 1895
‘Dream Land’
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI’s illustrations
‘At Home’
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI’s illustrations
(b) Unauthorized American reprintings, 1862
‘A Triad’
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI on the suppression of the poem
‘Cousin Kate’
Catholic World, March 1867
‘A Birthday’
A discussion in Notes and Queries, 1891-2
‘After Death’
Catholic World, March 1867
‘My Dream’
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI’s illustrations, 16 March 1855
(b) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI’s marginalia
‘Song’ [‘Oh roses for the flush of youth’]
Saturday Review on Rossetti’s versification, 5 February 1898
‘A Pause of Thought’
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI finds ‘a personal utterance’, 1901
‘Twilight Calm’
FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE
‘Shut Out’
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI’s revision
‘Song’ [‘When I am dead, my dearest’]
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI on musical settings, 1890
(b) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI makes a theological point, [September 1896]
‘The Convent Threshold’
GERARD M. HOPKINS responds in verse, 1864
‘The World’
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1904
‘Sleep at Sea’
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI offers objections, [8 November 1853]
‘From House to Home’
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI find indebtedness to Tennyson
‘Old and New Year Ditties. No. III.’ [‘Passing away, saith the World, passing away’]
(a) ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE’s superlative praise, Fortnightly Review, October 1867
(b) ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE reads aloud
(c) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1904
10 Alexander Macmillan, 1862-4
11 The Portfolio
12 Dante Gabriel Rossetti and preparations for a second volume of poems, 1864-5
13 The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems (1866)
(a) [JOHN WESTLAND MARSTON], Athenaeum, 23 June 1866
(b) London Review, 23 June 1866
(c) Saturday Review, 23 June 1866
(d) Pall Mall Gazette, 3 October 1866
‘The Prince’s Progress’
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI on her ‘reverse of the Sleeping Beauty’
‘Maiden-Song’
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI reports from Penkill Castle, 2 October 1868
‘A Bird’s-Eye View’
Spectator, 1 September 1866
‘Lady Maggie’
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI sees indebtedness
‘A Royal Princess’
(a) Notices in periodicals, 1863
(b) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI reports a recitation, 20 June 1884
‘L. E. L.’
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI reports from Penkill Castle, 6 October 1868
‘Gone For Ever’
Eclectic Review, August 1866
‘Good Friday’
(a) John Bull, 19 March 1864
(b) [HENRY ALFORD], Contemporary Review, December 1866
14 Poems (1866)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and her American publisher
(b) Nation, 19 July 1866
(c) S. W. D., Round Table, 28 July 1866
15 Critical comments
(a) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI compares Rossetti with Swinburne, 1866
(b) JOHN BURNELL PAYNE on Rossetti’s ‘limitations’, London Student, April 1868
(c) [HARRY BUXTON FORMAN] on Rossetti and ‘preraphaëlitism’, Tinsley’s Magazine, August 1869
(d) GERARD M. HOPKINS compares Christina with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 5 March 1872
16 Commonplace, and Other Short Stories (1870)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and her publishers
(b) G. A. SIMCOX, Academy, 9 July 1870
(c) M. B., Contemporary Review, August 1870
‘Hero’
(a) ALEXANDER MACMILLAN, 21 August 1861
(b) DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 5 January [1866]
‘Vanna’s Twins’
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE and WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, August 1870
‘A Safe Investment’
(a) Spectator, 29 October 1870
(b) [HARRY BUXTON FORMAN], London Quarterly Review, April 1871
‘The Waves of this Troublesome World’
HARRY BUXTON FORMAN, 1871
17 Sing-Song (1872)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and her publishers
(b) SIDNEY COLVIN, Academy, 15 January 1872
‘Dead in the cold, a song-singing thrush’
FORD MADOX HUEFFER (FORD) on metrical irregularity, Fortnightly Review, March 1904
18 Annus Domini (1874)
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 1874
19 Speaking Likenesses (1874)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and her publishers, 1873-4
(b) [CHARLES APPLETON], Academy, 5 December 1874
20 Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems (1875)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and ALEXANDER MACMILLAN, 1874-5
(b) DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 1875
(c) [THEODORE WATTS], Examiner, 4 December 1875
(d) [EDMUND GOSSE], Examiner, 18 December 1875
(e) B. V. [JAMES THOMSON], Secularist, 25 March 1876
‘From Sunset to Star Rise’
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1904
‘Twilight Night’
Saturday Review, 18 January 1868
‘Amor Mundi’
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1904
‘A Christmas Carol’ [‘In the bleak mid-winter’]
ALEXANDER MACMILLAN, 1868-9
‘By the Waters of Babylon. B. C. 570’
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, [13 October 1866]
‘Paradise’ [‘Once in a dream I saw the flowers’]
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI
21 Seek and Find (1879)
22 Sonnets
23 General critical comments
(a) EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN gives ‘small importance’ to Rossetti, 1876
(b) ERIC S. ROBERTSON places Rossetti among the ‘poetesses’, 1883
24 Poems to Rossetti
(a) DORA GREENWELL, ‘To Christina Rossetti’, 17 September 1875
(b) ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, ‘A Ballad of Appeal. To Christina G. Rossetti’, 1884.
25 A Pageant and Other Poems (1881)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and ALEXANDER MACMILLAN, 1881
(b) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 1881
(c) [THEODORE WATTS], Athenaeum, 10 September 1881
(d) Atlantic Monthly, January 1882
‘The Months: A Pageant’
FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE
‘Pastime’
Pall Mall Gazette, 9 September 1881
‘Mirrors of Life and Death’
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 1877
‘Monna Innominata’
(a) WILLIAM BELL SCOTT, 26 August 1881
(b) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1904
‘An October Garden’
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, [October 1877]
‘An Old-World Thicket’
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1904
26 Called to be Saints (1881)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI and her publishers
(b) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI reports Swinburne’s response, 28 July 1882
27 Letter and Spirit (1883)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI, February 1883
(b) G. A. SIMCOX, Academy, 9 June 1883
(c) CHARLOTTE POLIDORI reports Sister Josephine’s response, 9 December 1883
(d) MACKENZIE BELL, 1898
28 Time Flies (1885)
(a) CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI
(b) Academy, 27 June 1885
15 February [‘My love whose heart is tender said to me’]
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 7 June 1896.
29 The Face of the Deep (1892)
(a) ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE to EDMUND GOSSE, 4 June 1893
(b) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, July 1895
30 Verses (1893)
EDMUND K. CHAMBERS, Academy, 24 February 1894
31 Memorial poems
(a) MACKENZIE BELL, Literary World, 4 January 1895
(b) EDMUND K. CHAMBERS, Pelican Record, March 1895
(c) MICHAEL FIELD, Academy, 4 April 1896
(d) LISA WILSON, 1896
32 New Poems (1896)
(a) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI
(b) ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 20 January 1896
‘Repining’
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1896
‘Queen Rose’
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1896
‘Gone Before’
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
‘A Death of a First-born’
COULSON KERNAHAN recollects Swinburne’s response, 1917
33 The Poetical Works (1904)
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE and WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI, 1904
34 Critical comments and recollections
(a) A. C. BENSON on the mise-en-scène of Rossetti’s poetry, National Review, February 1895
(b) RICHARD WATSON DIXON on Rossetti’s ‘uncertainty of touch’, 16 March 1898
(c) CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON [LEWIS CARROLL] on the Laureateship, 13 October 1893
(d) CAROLINE M. GEMMER on Rossetti’s ‘unEnglish’ character, 1898
(e) EDMUND GOSSE, Century, June 1893
(i) on Rossetti’s relation to Pre-Raphaelitism
(ii) on Rossetti’s versification
(iii) on Rossetti’s sonnets
(f) EDMUND GOSSE on ‘the only woman in England I would allow to write poetry’, 21 October 1893
(g) EDMUND GOSSE on ‘the priority of Christina’, 1917
(h) FORD MADOX HUEFFER (FORD) on Rossetti and ‘the problems of her day’, Fortnightly Review, March 1904
(i) FORD MADOX HUEFFER (FORD) on Rossetti and ‘Modern’ poetry, 1911
(j) JAMES ASHCROFT NOBLE on the ‘spiritual burden’ of Rossetti’s poetry, 1895
(k) T. S. OMOND compares the rhythms of Swinburne and Rossetti, Academy, 24 April 1909
(l) WALTER RALEIGH compares Rossetti with Robert Browning, January 1892
(m) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI on ‘Christina’s habits of composing’, 1896, 1904
(n) WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI on Rossetti’s characteristics, 1904
(o) ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE places Rossetti among the ‘sacred poets’
(p) ARTHUR SYMONS on Rossetti’s interest in death, London Quarterly Review, July 1887
(q) ARTHUR SYMONS on the ‘artistic finish’ of Rossetti’s poetry, Saturday Review, 5 January 1895
(r) KATHARINE TYNAN on meeting Rossetti
(s) WILLIAM HALE WHITE on a ‘swindling notice’ of Rossetti, 13 September 1908
35 CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI on poetry and poets
(a) The ‘genuine "lyric cry"’
(b) Poetry ‘in a subjective vein’, 11 July 1881
(c) Poetry as ‘a gift’, 20 May 1885
(d) Writing ‘at the mercy of impulse’, 10 February 1892
(e) The integrity of compound poems
(f) Emily Dickinson’s ‘startling recklessness’, [6 December 1890]
(g) Shelley’s ‘blasphemy’
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEXES
(a) GENERAL INDEX
(b) INDEX OF CRITICAL TOPICS AND TERMS
Biography
Simon Humphries was formerly a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and is a Member of Linacre College, Oxford. His publications include the Oxford annotated edition of Christina Rossetti’s Poems and Prose (2008).
