On 16 September 1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti published Ballads and Sonnets (London: Ellis and White, 1881) along with a new edition of his Poems. Originally Rossetti intended to publish only one book of his works in 1881, a revised and augmented edition of his 1870 Poems. (On the 1870 volume, see Elizabeth Helsinger, “Lyric Poetry and the Event of Poems, 1870.″) In working over his materials, however, Rossetti soon realized that he had more poems than could be accommodated to a single volume, so he devised the scheme that eventuated in the publication of Ballads and Sonnets and its companion, A New Edition (so identified on the title page) of Poems.  Ballads and Sonnets included an expanded set of poems with the title, "The House of Life," now prefaced with an "Introductory Sonnet" with the first line, "A Sonnet is a moment's monument." Image: courtesy of The Rossetti Archive.