by Christina Rossetti

The youngest of four children in a family of scholars and artists, Christina Georgina Rossetti was born in 1830. Her mother, Frances Polidori, was a staunch Anglican of English and Italian descent, who had earlier worked as a governess and made two unsuccessful attempts to run a day school. Her father, Gabriele, was a political refugee from Italy and a scholar in the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Rossetti’s two brothers, Dante Gabriel and William Michael, helped found the prominent group of artists known as the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. A pre-Raphaelite quality of lush, even sensuous detail graces Christina Rossetti’s writing, as does a strong religious and moral sense; the mix made her particularly appealing to her contemporaries. Like her mother, Rossetti was a devout High Anglican, much influenced by a religious movement known as Tractarianism. Apparently...