Christina Rossetti

Though her poetry had been published since 1848 in various magazines and periodicals, Goblin Market and Other Poems was Christina Rossetti’s first commercially printed collection of works. It was well received by critics and fellow poets including Algernon Swinburne and Alfred Tennyson. This cover piece is from the second edition, published in 1865. Christina’s brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, created illustrations for the collection, which were made into wood engravings to adorn the printed books. The illustration chosen for the cover shows the sister protagonists of Goblin Market, Lizzie and Laura, asleep in an embrace.

• Artist Christina Rossetti
• Artwork Goblin Market and Other Poems (book cover)
• Material FSC Certified paper and wood
• Date of work 1865
• Credit Original: Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market 1865 ‘After Dante Gabriel Rossetti’ Wood engravings Tate. Library & Archive (London, UK)

Christina Rossetti (1830 – 1894) was an English poet. Educated at home by her mother, Rossetti was a prolific writer, and had her poems published at the age of 18. Her first commercially printed book of poetry, Goblin Market and Other Poems, 1862, was very favourably received by critics and contemporaries, who declared her the successor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She sat for her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti for several of his paintings, notably The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, 1848–9 and Ecce Ancilla Domini! (The Annunciation), 1849–50, both part of Tate’s collection. Her poetry is enduringly popular, and has influenced other writers and poets including Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin. Her verses have also been adapted by composers such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Gustav Holst.