Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

Born 5 Dec 1830 in London, England

Ancestors

Died 29 Dec 1894 at age 64 in Marylebone, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Christina Rossetti is Notable.

Christina Rossetti was one of England's most important female poets..

Birth and Earlier Life

Christina Georgina Rossetti was born to Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti and Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori on 5 December 1830 in London, England.^[1][2] She was baptised on 20 March 1831 in Marylebone, Middlesex, England.^[1]

Christina began writing poems in childhood, and her first volume was privately printed in 1847 at the expense of her maternal grandfather Gaetano Fedele Polidori.^[2]

In her late teens she sat as a model for several Pre-Raphaelite painters, including her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti.^[2]

In her teens her father's health and loss of his employment impoverished the Rossetti family.^[2] Attempts were made to start a school,^[2] in which Christina helped,^[3] but this did not succeed. The family fortunes did not improve until after the death of Christina's Polidori grandfather in 1853.^[2]

Marriage Proposals

In 1849 Christina became engaged to one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, James Collinson. The engagement ended the next year. One reason may have been that Collinson had joined the Roman Catholic Church.^[2][4]

In 1856 she rejected a proposal of marriage from the impoverished linguist Charles Bagot Cayley, who was an intimate of the Rossetti household. Her brother William Michael offered to give them a home and support, but she declined the offer. A major factor was religious differences: Charles Bagot Cayley was an agnostic, while Christina Rossetti was a committed high Anglican.^[5] They stayed close friends until his death in 1883, and a number of Christina's poems were inspired by their relationship. Looking back on her refusal of Charles's offer of marriage, Christina wrote to him, "very likely there was a moment when - and no wonder - those who loved you best thought very severely of me, and indeed I deserved severity at my own hands - I never seemed to get much at yours."^[5]

She may have turned down another proposal, from John Brett (another artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelites), in about 1858.^[2][6] In a poem which appears to refer to John Brett, she wrote: "I never said I loved you, John,/ Why will you teaze me day by day...?"

Subsequent Life

By the end of the 1850s Christina was a volunteer at a religious foundation for the improvement of "fallen women".^[2] After her father's death, she stayed in her widowed mother's house. The 1871 census records her at the home of her brother William Michael.^[7] For her last years she was in the household of a Polidori aunt.^[8][9]

Christina was plagued with bouts of ill-health and depression from childhood. In 1872 she was diagnosed with Graves' disease.^[2]

In the first half of the 1880s Christina was involved in campaigns to change the law relating to childhood prostitution: these led to an increase in the female age of consent from 13 to 16 in 1885.^[10]

Census data

• 1841: in her parents' house, London, age 10, born Middlesex.^[11]
• 1851: in her parents' house, age 20, school assistant, born London.^[3]
• 1861: in her widowed mother's house, Marylebone, London, age 30, no occupation, born Marylebone.^[12]
• 1871: in her brother William Michael's household, London, age 40, authoress, born Marylebone, Middlesex^[7]
• 1881: in the household of her aunt Eliza Polidori, Bloomsbury, London, age 50, authoress of poetry, born St Marylebone, Middlesex^[8]
• 1891: in the household of her aunt Eliza Polidori, Bloomsbury, London, age 60, living on literary earnings, born London^[9]

Death

In 1892 Christina underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer. Although she experienced a period of remission after, the disease proved fatal.^[13] She died on 29 December 1894.^[2] Her death was registered in the St Giles district of London in the fourth quarter of 1894.^[14][15][16] She was buried at Highgate Cemetery, London^[16] on 2 January 1895.^[2] Probate was granted on 11 February 1895.^[17]

When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

Bibliography

• Poetry collections
  • Verses. London: Private, 1847.
  • Goblin Market and Other Poems. London: Macmillan, 1862
  • 1876 Author's revised edition
  • The Prince's Progress and Other Poems. London: Macmillan, 1866
  • Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems. London: Macmillan, 1879
  • Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872, 1893)
  • A Pageant and Other Poems (1881)
  • Verses. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1893
  • New Poems. London: Macmillan, 1896
  • The Rossetti Birthday Book. London: Private, 1896
  • The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti. Edited by William Michael Rossetti. London: Macmillan, 1904
  • The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti. Edited by Rebecca W. Crump. A complete and comprehensive collection, with publication annotation, in three volumes. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979–1985
• Fiction
  • Commonplace and Other Stories. London: Ellis, 1870
  • Speaking Likenesses. London: Macmillan, 1874.
• Non-fiction
  • Called to Be Saints. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1881
  • "Dante, an English Classic". Churchman's Shilling Magazine and Family Treasury 2 (1867): 200–205
  • "Dante: The Poet Illustrated out of the Poem". The Century (February 1884): 566–573.
  • The Face of the Deep. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1893
  • Seek and Find: A Double Series of Short Studies of the Benedicite. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1879
  • Time Flies: A Reading Diary. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1885

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NPQM-HM9 : 21 March 2020), Christina Georgina Rossetti, 1831
2. ↑ ^{2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for 'Rossetti, Christina Georgina', print and online 2004, revised online 2009
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} "England and Wales Census, 1851," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SGFP-LYR : 9 November 2019), Christina Rossetti in household of Gabriele Rossetti, Saint Pancras, Middlesex, England; citing Saint Pancras, Middlesex, England, p. 13, from "1851 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO HO 107, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey
4. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for 'Collinson, James', print and online 2004
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Frances Thomas. Christina Rossetti, Virago Press, 1994, pp. 212-224
6. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for 'Brett, John (1831-1902)', print and online 2004, revised online 2913
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} "England and Wales Census, 1871", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VBD8-QV4 : 24 April 2019), Christina Georgina Rossetti in entry for William Michael Rossetti, 1871
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} "England and Wales Census, 1881," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK6R-RDQX : 8 December 2017), Christina G Rossetti in household of Eliza H Polidor, St Giles In The Fields And St George Bloomsbury, London,Middlesex, England; from "1881 England, Scotland and Wales Census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing p. 24, Piece/Folio 320/43, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,774,238
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} "England and Wales Census, 1891," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:3R55-9T2 : 1 May 2019), Christina R Rosetti in household of Eliza W Polidore, Bloomsbury, London, England, United Kingdom; from "1891 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 12, London county, subdistrict, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey
10. ↑ Frances Thomas, Christina Rossetti, pp. 345-346
11. ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1841," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQJD-N4P : 22 May 2019), Christina Rossetti in household of Gabriele Rossetti, St Marylebone, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom; from "1841 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO HO 107, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey
12. ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1861," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M7P1-55D : 24 October 2019), Christina Rosetti in household of Frances Rosetti, St Pancras, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom; from "1861 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 9, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey
13. ↑ Frances Thomas, Christina Rossetti, pp. 368-372
14. ↑ "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2JLG-QS7 : 31 December 2014), Christina Georgina Rossetti, 1894; from "England & Wales Deaths, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Death, St. Giles, London, England, General Register Office, Southport, England
15. ↑ England & Wales death registration: St Giles [district], Volume 1b, Page 332, December quarter 1894, age 64
16. ↑ ^{16.0 16.1} Find A Grave: Memorial #2753
17. ↑ "England and Wales, National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1957," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:7XDT-Y8T2 : 27 August 2019), Christina Georgina Rossetti, 11 Feb 1895; citing Probate, City of London, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, Great Britain.; FHL microfilm

• Digud, Lindsay. 'Rossetti, Christina Georgina' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, print and online 2004, revised online 2009, available online on subscription and via some libraries
• Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, entry for 'Rossetti, Christina, Georgina', Vol. 49, pp. 282-284, Wikisource
• Thomas, Frances. Christina Rossetti, Virago Press, 1994
• Jones, Kathleen. Christina Rossetti: Learning Not to Be First, St Martins Press, 1992, paperback reissue by The Book Mill, 2019
• Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer's Life, Viking, 1995
• 'Christina Rossetti', British Library website, accessed 10 August 2020
• Wikipedia:Christina_Rossetti

• Wikidata: Item Q236596, en:Wikipedia