The publication in 1862 of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market and Other Poems marked the first literary success of the Pre-Raphaelites. Since then her poetry has never lacked readers, and it has stood the test of time better than the work of many of her contemporaries. In 1911 Ford Madox Hueffer (Ford Madox Ford) saw her as an essentially modern figure: "I consider Christina Rossetti to be the greatest master of words--at least of English words--that the nineteenth century gave us.... although the range of her subjects was limited--although it was limited very strictly within the bound of her personal emotions--yet within those limits she expressed herself consummately." Both sides of that view have been echoed many times.

Christina Rossetti was the daughter of an Italian father and a half-English, half-Italian mother. She was the sister of Maria Francesca Rossetti, who was to become the author of a study of Dante...