Bouyed by his success with  Jump-to-Glory Jane in 1892, Laurence Housman made a proposal to Macmillan, Christina Rossetti's publisher, to design the first illustrated stand-alone version of her Goblin Market.  Housman had long admired both the poem and Dante Gabriel Rossetti's illustrations for the first edition, Goblin Market and Other Poems  (1862). As a novice illustrator mentored by Charles Ricketts, Housman had produced facsimiles of Rossetti's Goblin Market illustrations when he was working toward a more hardline, Pre-Raphaelite style of drawing. Housman's illustrations for Goblin Market, however, are entirely original. Although Christina Rossetti herself did not care for Housman's unique visualization of her poem, the critics and fellow artists did. His binding design was displayed at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society that year, Frederick Leighton added Housman's drawing for the title page to his collection, and Aubrey Beardsley invited him to contribute to the first volume of The Yellow Book.