In recent years Christina Rossetti's star has soared. Rossetti
(1830-1894) has come to be considered one of the major poets--not
just one of the major women poets--of the Victorian era, eclipsing
her famous brother. Leading critics have demonstrated how studies
of Rossetti's work, her daily life, her relationships with the
Pre-Raphaelites, and her interactions with other women authors of
the period can help us understand the unique cultural situation of
Victorian women writers. When complete in four volumes, this
project will make available all of Rossetti's extant letters,
almost two-thirds of which have never been published.
The third volume of the Letters covers years in which Christina
Rossetti lost several important family members, including her
mother, her brother Dante, and a young nephew, Michael, and many
close friends. Her preoccupation with their illnesses and with
memorializing her brother took its toll on her poetic output. In
the face of her loss, she turned increasingly to religion and wrote
works of devotional prose--Time Flies, Letter and Spirit--not
designed to attract much literary attention. Rossetti herself had
been diagnosed with Graves' disease in 1872; by 1874 she had
recovered but continued to use her earlier health problems to
identify herself as a "semi-recluse," which allowed her a degree of
freedom she might not have had otherwise. This self-imposed
reclusiveness, however, gave rise to a large correspondence, in
which her interests and sensibilities were given broad exposure.
She devoted more time to favored causes, including
antivivisectionism and the protection of minors, and her letters
afford the reader an in-depth perspective on these and other public
issues and on the personal values underlying her opinions.
General
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