Christina Rossetti was born in London in 1830, the youngest of four children born to Gabriel Rossetti and Frances Polidori. Both of her parents were highly educated and raised Rossetti and her siblings with an appreciation for art and education. Rossetti’s mother raised her and her sister at home to be governesses, while her brothers were sent to boarding school. In her fifteenth year, Rossetti became seriously ill, although there are speculations on whether her illness was primarily mental or physical. Nevertheless, she suffered from depression and various periods of illness her entire life.
As a child, Rossetti and her two brothers, William and Dante Gabriel, would often play games that involved composing sonnets. In 1848, Rossetti first poems were published, “Death’s Chill Between” and “Heart’s Chill Between,” in The Athenaeum, a British literary magazine; although she published under a pseudonym. It wasn’t until 1862, when Rossetti published Goblin Market and Other Poems, that she would print under her own name.
In the late 1840s as well, Rossetti’s brothers would become founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of artists opposed to the Royal Academy and who focused on Romanticism, sincerity and nature within their art. While Rossetti was associated with the society (she would publish some of her early poems in the Pre-Raphaelite magazine, The Germ, as well as occasionally act as an art model), she was never an official member.
Throughout her life, Rossetti had several suitors, including Pre-Raphaelite member James Collinson and painter John Brett, who is the suspected inspiration behind Rossetti’s poem “No, Thank you, John.” Rossetti never married and by the late 1870s was very self-conscious of her looks, which had been affected her Graves’ disease. Over this period, she suffered from several different ailments which, along with her temperament, made her unlikely to leave the house. This melancholy reflected in much of her poetry, which often reflected themes of sadness and death.
Near the end of her life, Rossetti wrote much less and what she did write mainly reflected her religious faith and much of it was donated to Christian charities. Rossetti died near the end of 1894 after two years with cancer. After her death, her brother William edited and published many of the poetry she had written later in life or deemed unworthy of publication prior in a collection entitled New Poems, Hitherto Unpublished or Uncollected.
Further Reading
Barringer, Tim. “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 1 Sept. 2017, https://doi-org.er.lib.k-state.edu/10.1093/ref:odnb/64454.‌
“Christina Rossetti.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christina-rossetti.
“Christina Rossetti.” The British Library, www.bl.uk/people/christina-rossetti.
Duguid, Lindsay. “Rossetti, Christina Georgina.” The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 Sept. 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/24139.