Robert Browning along with his wife Elizabeth are living in Florence at the time. Robert is walking among the various vendors in the piazza and stumbles on The Old Yellow Book.  The book records a sensational murder trial in Rome between January-February of 1698. Characteristically of Robert, he is drawn and intrigued by this story of criminal properties. The mind of a criminal enthralls Robert.

Christina Rossetti wrote "From the Antique" in London, England after returning there with her mother from Frome in Somerset, England. In Frome she had been keeping up a school with her mother. In 1854 she returned to London where she cared for her ill father, who shortly died in April 1854. Though the poem probably reflects her own grief at being a woman in her time period, one could see how the grief of losing her father might have been an influence on her desolation.

Browning was born in a suburb of London in 1812 and wrote many of his early works in the city. One notable poem, “Porphyria”, was originally published in the January 1836 edition of The Monthly Repository. In 1842, he published an edited version of “Porphyria” under the title “Madhouse Cells” in Bells and Pomegranates. Both The Monthly Repository and Bells and Pomegranates were publications based in London. However, from 1846 to 1861, while living in Italy, Browning made no recorded edits to “Porphyria”.

Illustrator Clarkson Stanfield's first major voyage was to Whampoa (Huangpu), China in 1815. It has been said that Stanfield's depictions of ships, the ocean, and other travel-related subjects give his viewers heightened knowledge of these topics because they were so accurate. This voyage was the first of many from which he came back with many sketches, and it is also where his talents were first noticed.

Illustrator Clarkson Stanfield's first major voyage was to Whampoa (Huangpu), China in 1815. It has been said that Stanfield's depictions of ships, the ocean, and other travel-related subjects give his viewers hightened knowledge of these topics because they were so accurate. This voyage was the first of many from which he came back with many sketches, and it is also where his talents were first noticed.