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Christina Rossetti: A Writer's Life
The first full-scale biography of the Victorian poet explains her recurrent bouts of depression following rumors of sexual abuse, traces her ties to London's literati, and discusses her place in the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
640 pages, Hardcover
First published December 21, 1994
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September 30, 2023Huh. Most ponder. 🤔 I seem to have a streak of these lately. 😂
I am glad I read this biography. I learned a lot about Christina Rossetti and about the world of London in her lifetime (1830 to 1894). I also got some insights into the male-dominated world of art with her brothers' founding of and involvment in the Pre-Raphaelites. I loved seeing the connections between Rossetti's Italian expat father and the world of Italian literature and poetry that he loved and the love of which he passed onto his children. Dante was a life-long love for Christina and her elder sister Maria. It's so interesting too that the two sisters remained devout Anglicans while both her brothers became agnostics (possibly atheists). I feel especially for William. He lived the longest of the siblings by far (I think he outlived Christina by at least 20 years), and he did end up bearing a lot of the financial burden for his mother and sisters before he married in his 40s and the emotional burden of Gabriel's increasingly challenging mental health difficulties in the last years of his life.
In Christina's teens she had some kind of emotional breakdown that led to persistent bouts of depression and ill health throughout her life. Marsh has quite a Freudian interpretation of these events and...I'm just not convinced. Or maybe it's more that I'm not sure it's worth speculating about since we will never know this side of heaven. I did put the biography down for several months after reading these chapters but I hate to not finish things that I specially bought, so I did pick it up again grudgingly and enjoyed the second half more than the first half. The Freudian thread is still present in the second half but to a much lesser degree. I think Christina herself also gained more stability (emotionally and in her calling as a poet and writer) and it was gratifying to see her gain confidence with her writing projects.
The author explored more of Christina's faith in the second half of the biography too, but I was disappointed in the lack of content about the Anglican Church at the time and especially the High Church Anglican movement. It was hard to tell how sympathetic the author was to that part of Christina's life, which feels odd because I get the impression that Christina would prioritize her faith over her role as a poet even. Marsh didn't have much good to say about Pusey and attributed some harmful spiritual effects on Christina to him. Was that really the case? I don't doubt that per se, but was there no good to come of it either? Of course, Marsh researched extensively, and I never had any fault to find with her grasp of the time period, Christina's writings, etc., but her conclusions were often offputting.
I closed the biography without feeling motivated to pick up Christina's poetry or prose. I'm not sure what that's about, and I feel vaguely dissatisfied. It may be that Christina's poetry is actually not quite my style. Her poetry tends towards the allegorical and is often wordy, and I personally tend towards the more spare poetry of the 20th century with poets like Richard Wilbur, Denise Levertov, etc. I'm not sure whether this is a fundamental mismatch between Christina's mind and mine or if I need to develop a capacity for Christina's kind of poetry. I think the answer is a bit of the former and lots (and lots) of the latter, so I do pray that I will, with time, grow in my ability to enjoy and to dwell in poetry of myth, legend, allusion, and complexity and thus be able to recognize Christina’s full artistic merit.
I am glad I read this biography. I learned a lot about Christina Rossetti and about the world of London in her lifetime (1830 to 1894). I also got some insights into the male-dominated world of art with her brothers' founding of and involvment in the Pre-Raphaelites. I loved seeing the connections between Rossetti's Italian expat father and the world of Italian literature and poetry that he loved and the love of which he passed onto his children. Dante was a life-long love for Christina and her elder sister Maria. It's so interesting too that the two sisters remained devout Anglicans while both her brothers became agnostics (possibly atheists). I feel especially for William. He lived the longest of the siblings by far (I think he outlived Christina by at least 20 years), and he did end up bearing a lot of the financial burden for his mother and sisters before he married in his 40s and the emotional burden of Gabriel's increasingly challenging mental health difficulties in the last years of his life.
In Christina's teens she had some kind of emotional breakdown that led to persistent bouts of depression and ill health throughout her life. Marsh has quite a Freudian interpretation of these events and...I'm just not convinced. Or maybe it's more that I'm not sure it's worth speculating about since we will never know this side of heaven. I did put the biography down for several months after reading these chapters but I hate to not finish things that I specially bought, so I did pick it up again grudgingly and enjoyed the second half more than the first half. The Freudian thread is still present in the second half but to a much lesser degree. I think Christina herself also gained more stability (emotionally and in her calling as a poet and writer) and it was gratifying to see her gain confidence with her writing projects.
The author explored more of Christina's faith in the second half of the biography too, but I was disappointed in the lack of content about the Anglican Church at the time and especially the High Church Anglican movement. It was hard to tell how sympathetic the author was to that part of Christina's life, which feels odd because I get the impression that Christina would prioritize her faith over her role as a poet even. Marsh didn't have much good to say about Pusey and attributed some harmful spiritual effects on Christina to him. Was that really the case? I don't doubt that per se, but was there no good to come of it either? Of course, Marsh researched extensively, and I never had any fault to find with her grasp of the time period, Christina's writings, etc., but her conclusions were often offputting.
I closed the biography without feeling motivated to pick up Christina's poetry or prose. I'm not sure what that's about, and I feel vaguely dissatisfied. It may be that Christina's poetry is actually not quite my style. Her poetry tends towards the allegorical and is often wordy, and I personally tend towards the more spare poetry of the 20th century with poets like Richard Wilbur, Denise Levertov, etc. I'm not sure whether this is a fundamental mismatch between Christina's mind and mine or if I need to develop a capacity for Christina's kind of poetry. I think the answer is a bit of the former and lots (and lots) of the latter, so I do pray that I will, with time, grow in my ability to enjoy and to dwell in poetry of myth, legend, allusion, and complexity and thus be able to recognize Christina’s full artistic merit.
October 30, 2015
I have just finished reading Jan Marsh’s monumental biography of the Victorian poet, Christina Georgina Rossetti, entitled, “Christina Rossetti: A Literary Biography,” and all I can say is “Bravo!” This extremely well written biography leads the reader through Christina’s interesting and complicated family life, as well as providing significant insight into the development of her poetic craft, and the intellectual stimulus behind much of her work. Christina, born in 1830, was the youngest of four children, and wrote her first poem as a birthday present for her mother when she was eleven. Her elder siblings, Maria, Dante Gabriel, and William were also accomplished writers; and in Dante’s case, he was an incredibly talented artist as well.
I read Marsh’s biography of Christina concurrently, in a side-by-side fashion, with the Penguin Classics edition of “Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems,” and it made the experience ever so much richer. It would be easy to pigeon-hole Christina Rossetti as simply a religious poet, but that would be very short-sighted. Yes, she was very pious, and was incredibly devoted to her faith and the High Anglican church she was raised in. Her poetry though, while complex, lyrical, and imaginative, reflects the trials and tribulations of a young woman’s feelings whilst growing up in Victorian England. Over the course of her life, Christina wrote more than 1,000 poems that weave together her fantasies, experiences, feelings, moral upbringing, social conventions, and her deep and abiding faith together in a body of work that is virtually unparalleled among poets, including those that preceded or followed her.
It was also interesting to learn just how involved she was with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s creation, in 1848, with his friends, of the avant-garde artistic movement that became the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB). This initial group included William Holman Hunt, James Collinson, John Everett Millais, and Christina’s other brother William Michael Rossetti. Several of the artists, including Dante, also wrote and published poetry, and Christina was invited to publish her early poetry in the PRB periodical, “The Germ.” The young Christina also sat as a studio model in several of Dante’s beautiful paintings. More importantly, while Christina did not always approve of the life-styles and activities of many of the members of the PRB, she was intellectually challenged and stimulated by the round-the-clock philosophical and artistic discussions that the members engaged in. Both of her brothers, especially Dante Gabriel, were fully committed and active supporters and promoters of her poetry and provided extensive literary and critical advice over the course of her career.
I found it fascinating to learn that during Christina’s lifetime, because of her own talents, and the literary connections of her family, Christina met and spent time with Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Jean Ingelow, Adelaide Proctor, Charles Dodgson (“Lewis Carroll”), and a whole host of other poets and writers. The biography also includes several photographic family portraits taken by Charles Dodgson, as well as numerous sketches and paintings of Christina and other family members by her brother, Dante. She was known to be a prolific reader and letter writer, and wrote scores of short stories and essays, both secular and religious; and Ms. Marsh has drawn upon much of this prose and correspondence in fleshing out the details of Christina’s life.
Ms. Marsh’s biography provides one of the most detailed looks into the day-to-day life of women in Victorian London, and the dependence that many single or widowed women had on the men in their family for their support. After the death of Christina’s father in 1854, her brother William essentially became responsible for the care of his mother and his two unmarried sisters. Christina, over the course of her life, rejected two serious proposals of marriage; the first from James Collinson, of the PRB; and the second from Charles Bagout Cayley. It appears that the reasons for these rejections were that neither man shared the same religious beliefs that she adhered to. While both of her brothers had complicated relationships with women and did eventually marry; neither Christina, nor her older sister, Maria, ever married. That lack of a long-term romantic love is a topic that Christina’s poetry returns to time and time again.
As Christina’s poetic voice matured, she began to submit her works for publication. Her first substantial book-length publication was “Goblin Market and Other Poems” in 1862. “Goblin Market” was immensely popular and well-received by the critics, and seems to have established her as a poet of some note in both Britain and the United States. This brought her wide-spread fame and allowed her to contribute to the Rossetti household income and support her charity work. In fact, upon the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1861, Christina became the natural successor to the informal title of 'female laureate.' Over the course of Christina’s literary career she was able to have published several books of collected poems; including “Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book” for children, a delightful collection of short poems and riddles that recalled her days as a little girl in the rambunctious Rossetti family.
Ms. Marsh’s biography does a terrific job of illuminating the personality and character traits of this woman, her interactions with her immediate family, and the wide network of friends that she had. Marsh also sheds insight on Christina’s many years of charity work at the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate. While it was not a prison, but a ‘home’ with a fairly structured routine, she worked with women who had had children out of wedlock, or had been abandoned, or were active prostitutes coming off of the streets of London. Again, much of her poetry seems to reflect many of the life experiences that she would have become aware of during the course of her work with these women. Finally, in middle-age her declining health became much more of an issue for her. For years she battled ‘Graves Disease’ (a thyroid condition); and later, the breast cancer that ultimately claimed her life in 1894 at the age of 64.
The most important aspect of Jan Marsh’s biography is that the reader comes away with an understanding behind Christina’s most powerful works -- the muse behind the words. The reader has a better sense of the role that her life experiences and her faith played in the development of her major poetic works. In that vein, I really want to recommend some of my very favorite poems of Christina’s that really illustrate what a technically and lyrically accomplished poet she was, including the following: “Goblin Market,” “The Convent Threshold,” "The Prince’s Progress,” “The Ghost’s Petition,” “The Months/A Pageant,” “Monna Innominata” (a sequence of 14 sonnets), “An Echo from Willowwood,” “The Dead City,” “Ruin,” and “In an Artist’s Studio.”
In conclusion, Jan Marsh’s many years of researching and writing about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and the women associated with that movement (she also wrote a book entitled, “Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood”) has eminently prepared her to write this superb biography of one of the greatest poets of the Victorian Era – Christina Georgina Rossetti. In many respects, the book reads like a novel, is well illustrated, and includes a prodigious amount of Christina’s eloquent poetry that reinforces the connections, and relationships that Ms. Marsh believes motivated Christina’s poetic muse. This was an important book for me, and has caused me to appreciate Miss Rossetti’s poetry all the more.
I read Marsh’s biography of Christina concurrently, in a side-by-side fashion, with the Penguin Classics edition of “Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems,” and it made the experience ever so much richer. It would be easy to pigeon-hole Christina Rossetti as simply a religious poet, but that would be very short-sighted. Yes, she was very pious, and was incredibly devoted to her faith and the High Anglican church she was raised in. Her poetry though, while complex, lyrical, and imaginative, reflects the trials and tribulations of a young woman’s feelings whilst growing up in Victorian England. Over the course of her life, Christina wrote more than 1,000 poems that weave together her fantasies, experiences, feelings, moral upbringing, social conventions, and her deep and abiding faith together in a body of work that is virtually unparalleled among poets, including those that preceded or followed her.
It was also interesting to learn just how involved she was with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s creation, in 1848, with his friends, of the avant-garde artistic movement that became the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB). This initial group included William Holman Hunt, James Collinson, John Everett Millais, and Christina’s other brother William Michael Rossetti. Several of the artists, including Dante, also wrote and published poetry, and Christina was invited to publish her early poetry in the PRB periodical, “The Germ.” The young Christina also sat as a studio model in several of Dante’s beautiful paintings. More importantly, while Christina did not always approve of the life-styles and activities of many of the members of the PRB, she was intellectually challenged and stimulated by the round-the-clock philosophical and artistic discussions that the members engaged in. Both of her brothers, especially Dante Gabriel, were fully committed and active supporters and promoters of her poetry and provided extensive literary and critical advice over the course of her career.
I found it fascinating to learn that during Christina’s lifetime, because of her own talents, and the literary connections of her family, Christina met and spent time with Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Jean Ingelow, Adelaide Proctor, Charles Dodgson (“Lewis Carroll”), and a whole host of other poets and writers. The biography also includes several photographic family portraits taken by Charles Dodgson, as well as numerous sketches and paintings of Christina and other family members by her brother, Dante. She was known to be a prolific reader and letter writer, and wrote scores of short stories and essays, both secular and religious; and Ms. Marsh has drawn upon much of this prose and correspondence in fleshing out the details of Christina’s life.
Ms. Marsh’s biography provides one of the most detailed looks into the day-to-day life of women in Victorian London, and the dependence that many single or widowed women had on the men in their family for their support. After the death of Christina’s father in 1854, her brother William essentially became responsible for the care of his mother and his two unmarried sisters. Christina, over the course of her life, rejected two serious proposals of marriage; the first from James Collinson, of the PRB; and the second from Charles Bagout Cayley. It appears that the reasons for these rejections were that neither man shared the same religious beliefs that she adhered to. While both of her brothers had complicated relationships with women and did eventually marry; neither Christina, nor her older sister, Maria, ever married. That lack of a long-term romantic love is a topic that Christina’s poetry returns to time and time again.
As Christina’s poetic voice matured, she began to submit her works for publication. Her first substantial book-length publication was “Goblin Market and Other Poems” in 1862. “Goblin Market” was immensely popular and well-received by the critics, and seems to have established her as a poet of some note in both Britain and the United States. This brought her wide-spread fame and allowed her to contribute to the Rossetti household income and support her charity work. In fact, upon the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1861, Christina became the natural successor to the informal title of 'female laureate.' Over the course of Christina’s literary career she was able to have published several books of collected poems; including “Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book” for children, a delightful collection of short poems and riddles that recalled her days as a little girl in the rambunctious Rossetti family.
Ms. Marsh’s biography does a terrific job of illuminating the personality and character traits of this woman, her interactions with her immediate family, and the wide network of friends that she had. Marsh also sheds insight on Christina’s many years of charity work at the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate. While it was not a prison, but a ‘home’ with a fairly structured routine, she worked with women who had had children out of wedlock, or had been abandoned, or were active prostitutes coming off of the streets of London. Again, much of her poetry seems to reflect many of the life experiences that she would have become aware of during the course of her work with these women. Finally, in middle-age her declining health became much more of an issue for her. For years she battled ‘Graves Disease’ (a thyroid condition); and later, the breast cancer that ultimately claimed her life in 1894 at the age of 64.
The most important aspect of Jan Marsh’s biography is that the reader comes away with an understanding behind Christina’s most powerful works -- the muse behind the words. The reader has a better sense of the role that her life experiences and her faith played in the development of her major poetic works. In that vein, I really want to recommend some of my very favorite poems of Christina’s that really illustrate what a technically and lyrically accomplished poet she was, including the following: “Goblin Market,” “The Convent Threshold,” "The Prince’s Progress,” “The Ghost’s Petition,” “The Months/A Pageant,” “Monna Innominata” (a sequence of 14 sonnets), “An Echo from Willowwood,” “The Dead City,” “Ruin,” and “In an Artist’s Studio.”
In conclusion, Jan Marsh’s many years of researching and writing about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and the women associated with that movement (she also wrote a book entitled, “Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood”) has eminently prepared her to write this superb biography of one of the greatest poets of the Victorian Era – Christina Georgina Rossetti. In many respects, the book reads like a novel, is well illustrated, and includes a prodigious amount of Christina’s eloquent poetry that reinforces the connections, and relationships that Ms. Marsh believes motivated Christina’s poetic muse. This was an important book for me, and has caused me to appreciate Miss Rossetti’s poetry all the more.
January 16, 2016
In many ways, the book provides an excellent analysis of Rossetti's life, as well as her writing. But there is a suspicion for the reader that the Freudian approach to the text at times moves beyond the "true" toward the "fanciful." If a biographer should be grounded in facts, this book often enough finds itself in the hypothetical.
December 15, 2017
This is a book that I had to read for one of my poetry courses in college.
Christina Rossetti is one of my favorite poets. I've written on her a number of times, and I was really excited to have to read this. Don't waste your time.
It's really dragging, even for a memoir. It's over 600 pages, and it certainly doesn't need to be. Granted, there's some pages with photos on them, but that doesn't make up for the dry, student thesis paper type writing that this biography has.
It's also unreliable. The author goes out of her way to insert her own opinion, presented as fact. Such as, that Christina Rossetti had some intimate relations with a family member. There's no evidence of this. While it's acceptable to bring it up as a theory, or even to write a book about how you feel that's what her writing or actions in her life suggest, it's still not fact. Because she shows a bias to some theories and ideas and not others, it makes her an unreliable narrator, so I don't know if everything else in the book is accurate either.
Unless you have to read it for a class like I did, skip it. There's better books about her life.
Christina Rossetti is one of my favorite poets. I've written on her a number of times, and I was really excited to have to read this. Don't waste your time.
It's really dragging, even for a memoir. It's over 600 pages, and it certainly doesn't need to be. Granted, there's some pages with photos on them, but that doesn't make up for the dry, student thesis paper type writing that this biography has.
It's also unreliable. The author goes out of her way to insert her own opinion, presented as fact. Such as, that Christina Rossetti had some intimate relations with a family member. There's no evidence of this. While it's acceptable to bring it up as a theory, or even to write a book about how you feel that's what her writing or actions in her life suggest, it's still not fact. Because she shows a bias to some theories and ideas and not others, it makes her an unreliable narrator, so I don't know if everything else in the book is accurate either.
Unless you have to read it for a class like I did, skip it. There's better books about her life.
February 6, 2016
Within this book of nearly 600 pages lies an interesting story of one of England's best female poets. Maybe even the best. But the story is lost in pages of over flowery waffle. If the book was 400 pages shorter, I would gave enjoyed it but I got bored. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Christina's brother and founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) and his circle usually fascinate me and the author, Gay Daley's "Pre-Raphaelite's In Love" is one of the best books written on the subject. It's a shame but I just couldn't sit to finish this so I could read something much more interesting.
January 10, 2026
A magnificent biography of an underappreciated nineteenth century English writer.
This dense yet compelling work must have cost the author years of labor since it includes abundant references. But stick with it, read it steadily and you will garner rewards that are lasting and significant.
I can quibble about some of the author's speculative comments but I defer to her mastery since I have not seen her sources.
Here's your opportunity to make up for all those idle hours you frittered away in your college English classes when you should have been diving deeper into selected author's lives. I'm glad I purchased this volume, read it carefully and have added it in my permanent library. Once you read it, you will too.
This dense yet compelling work must have cost the author years of labor since it includes abundant references. But stick with it, read it steadily and you will garner rewards that are lasting and significant.
I can quibble about some of the author's speculative comments but I defer to her mastery since I have not seen her sources.
Here's your opportunity to make up for all those idle hours you frittered away in your college English classes when you should have been diving deeper into selected author's lives. I'm glad I purchased this volume, read it carefully and have added it in my permanent library. Once you read it, you will too.
February 18, 2020
Lots of facts about Rossetti but the writing drags. Typos. Hard to read, which is unfortunate since the subject is actually fascinating.
September 4, 2025
A very detailed biography. I found the level of detail a bit much and ultimately, I didn't get much more of a sense of who Christina Rossetti really was than I had before. Still, I'm glad I read it.
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July 7, 2008Why does everyone insist upon discovering new "facts" about long-dead authors based upon scant information?
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