Christina Rossetti

Biography of Christina Rossetti (1830 – 1894)

Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Christina Georgina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 – December 29, 1894) was an English poet and the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Their father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a political asylum seeker from Naples, and their mother, Frances Polidori, was the sister of Lord Byron‘s friend and physician, John William Polidori.

Born in London and educated privately, she suffered ill-health in her youth, but was already writing poetry in her teens. Her engagement to a painter, James Collinson, was broken off because of religious differences (she was High Church Anglican). This experience is credited with inspiring her most popular poem ‘Remember’. Some believe she also rejected a somewhat less than reputable proposition from John Ruskin. (“Here’s friendship for you if you like; but love, –/No, thank you, John.”)

She produced her first published verse under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne. Many of her poems were aimed at children. Christina rejected the social world of her brother’s “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood”, preferring “my shady crevice — which crevice enjoys the unique advantage of being to my certain knowledge the place assigned me.”

Biography By: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Christina Rossetti.

Poems By Christina Rossetti

Miscellaneous

A Better Ressurection (No Comments »)
A Birthday (No Comments »)
A Pause (No Comments »)
A Study (A Soul) (No Comments »)
Aloof (No Comments »)
An Apple-Gathering (No Comments »)
An Echo from Willowood (No Comments »)
At Home (No Comments »)
Before The Paling Of The Stars (No Comments »)
Beneath Thy Cross (No Comments »)
Bride Song (No Comments »)
By The Sea (No Comments »)
Cobwebs (No Comments »)
Cousin Kate (No Comments »)
Dream Land (No Comments »)
Echo (No Comments »)
Fluttered Wings (No Comments »)
From “Later Life” (No Comments »)
From Sunset to Star Rise (No Comments »)
From the Antique (No Comments »)
Goblin Market (No Comments »)
Holy Innocents (No Comments »)
In Progress (No Comments »)
In The Willow Shade (No Comments »)
Is it Well with the Child? (No Comments »)
Later life (No Comments »)
Marvel of Marvels (No Comments »)
Maude Clare (No Comments »)
May (No Comments »)
Mirage (No Comments »)
Monna Innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets (No Comments »)
No, Thank You John (No Comments »)
Passing away, saith the World (No Comments »)
Promises Like Pie-Crust (No Comments »)
Rest (No Comments »)
Sappho (No Comments »)
Silent Noon (No Comments »)
Sleeping at last (No Comments »)
Spring Quiet (No Comments »)
The Convent Threshold (No Comments »)
The First Day (No Comments »)
The Prince’s Progress (excerpt) (No Comments »)
The Thread of Life (No Comments »)
The Three Enemies (No Comments »)
Twice (No Comments »)
Uphill (No Comments »)
What Would I Give (No Comments »)
When I am dead, my dearest (No Comments »)
Who Has Seen the Wind? (No Comments »)
Who shall deliver me? (No Comments »)
Winter: My Secret (No Comments »)

Goblin Market and Other Poems

Song (She Sat And Sang Alway) (No Comments »)

Poems

A Daughter Of Eve (No Comments »)
De Profundis (No Comments »)
In An Artist’s Studio (No Comments »)
Remember (No Comments »)