Christina Rossetti

'She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth' A selection of Rossetti's most famous poems, from the hallucinatory 'Goblin Market' to 'In the bleak mid-winter' Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). Rossetti's The Complete Poems is available in Penguin Classics.

'The mystery of Life, the mystery Of Death, I see Darkly as in a glass...' Christina Rossetti (1830-94) is perhaps the most contradictory of the great Victorian poets. She writes of the world's beauty, but fears that it may be deceptive, even deadly. She is a religious poet, but much of her work is driven by uncertainty. Her poems are restrained, even secretive, but they seek nothing less than the mystery of Life and Death. This edition contains Rossetti's strongest and most distinctive work: poetry (including 'Goblin Market', 'The Prince's Progress', and the sonnet sequence 'Monna Innominata'), stories (including the complete text of Maude), devotional prose (with nearly fifty entries from the 'reading diary' Times Flies), and personal letters. Those poems which Rossetti published, and those which she withheld from publication, are here brought together in chronological order, allowing the reader to observe her poetic trajectory. This edition also records the major revisions made by Rossetti when preparing her poems for publication. It brings together the fullest range of Rossetti's poetry and prose in one volume, and is an indispensable introduction to this entrancing writer. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This new selection of Rossetti's poems brings together works by one of the most significant nineteenth-century English poets. It includes an illuminating introduction, a chronology of Rossetti's life and works, and explanatory notes.

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) has come to be considered one of the major poets - not just one of the major women poets - of the Victorian era, eclipsing her famous brother. Leading critics have demonstrated how studies of Rossetti's work, her daily life, her relationships with the Pre-Raphaelites, and her interactions with other women authors of the period can help us understand the unique cultural situation of Victorian women writers. The Letters of Christina Rossetti, four volumes, makes available all of Rossetti's extant letters, almost two-thirds of which have never before been published. These letters come from over one hundred private and institutional collections, scattered from Scotland to Australia. The fourth and final volume of the Letters covers the last eight years of Christina Rossetti's life. In 1887 Rossetti, at the age of fifty-six, was living with her two aged, ailing aunts. In addition to managing the household and nursing her aunts, she published an enlarged edition of her collected poems and, in 1892, wrote her greatest book of devotional prose, The Face of the Deep. She also oversaw the production of a new and enlarged edition of Sing-Song, published in 1893. As a stay-at-home semi-invalid, she maintained a very large correspondence with friends and family members. Her most intimate relationship was with her sole remaining sibling, William Michael Rossetti, but other correspondents include Amelia Bernard Heimann, Caroline Gemmer, Frederic Shields, Rose Donne Hake, Olivia Garnett, Ellen Proctor, Lisa Wilson, Arthur Symons, and Mackenzie Bell, who became her first biographer. In these letters we discover Rossetti's views on subjects as diverse as the artistry of her poems, her health, aging, death, gender roles, money, cats, flowers, games, and her own supposed sinfulness. In May of 1892 Christina Rossetti was diagnosed with breast cancer. The cancer was removed, but she suffered a recurrence in September 1894 and died on December 29th of that year.

Rossetti is unique among Victorian poets for the sheer range of her subject matter and the variety of her verse form. This collection brings together fantasy poems, such as Goblin Market, and terrifyingly vivid verses for children, love lyrics and sonnets, and the vast body of her devotional poetry. Rossetti's poems weave connections between love and death, triumph and loss, heavenly joys and earthly pleasures. The directness and clarity of her lyrics still have the power to startle us with their truth and beauty.

In recent years Christina Rossetti's star has soared. Rossetti (1830-1894) has come to be considered one of the major poets - not just one of the major women poets - of the Victorian era, eclipsing her famous brother. Leading critics have demonstrated how studies of Rossetti's work, her daily life, her relationships with the Pre-Raphaelites, and her interactions with other women authors of the period can help us understand the unique cultural situation of Victorian women writers. When complete in four volumes, this project will make available all of Rossetti's extant letters, almost two-thirds of which have never been published. The third volume of the ""Letters"" covers years in which Christina Rossetti lost several important family members, including her mother, her brother Dante, and a young nephew, Michael, and many close friends. Her preoccupation with their illnesses and with memorializing her brother took its toll on her poetic output. In the face of her loss, she turned increasingly to religion and wrote works of devotional prose - ""Time Flies"", ""Letter and Spirit"" - not designed to attract much literary attention. Rossetti herself had been diagnozed with Graves' disease in 1872; by 1874 she had recovered but continued to use her earlier health problems to identify herself as a ""semi-recluse"", which allowed her a degree of freedom she might not have had otherwise. This self-imposed reclusiveness gave rise to a large correspondence, in which her interest and sensibilities were given broad exposure. She devoted more time to favoured causes, including antivivisectionism and the protection of minors, and her letters afford the reader an in-depth perspective on these and other public issues and on the personal values underlying her opinions.

This edition of 32 works combines a number of the English poet's best-known sonnets, ballads, and shorter works, along with her long masterpiece "Goblin Market." Others in this choice collection include "The Convent Threshold," "Up-hill," "Cousin Kate," "Winter: My Secret," "Maude Clare," "No, Thank You, John," and "After Death."

As we have reached the centenary of Christina Rosetti's death, she has become considered as one of the major poets of the Victorian era. Leading critics have demonstrated how studies of Rossetti's work, her daily life, her relationship with the Pre-Raphaelites, and her interactions with other women authors of the period can help the people understand the cultural situation of Victorian women writers. When complete in four volumes, this project will make available all of Rossetti's extant letters. The letters in this second volume ""expose a woman of powerful intellect, complex emotions, unshakeable convictions and loving heart"". Rossetti, 43 years old in 1874, is now an established poet with a strong literary reputation among her contemporaries. But, as Harrison points out in his introduction to the volume, ""two thirds of her life was over, and its losses were mounting"". The marriage of William Michael, the death of her sister, Maria, Dante Gabriel's addiction to chloral and the illness that led to his death in 1882, and the deaths of close personal and family friends overshadow these years. Her own affliction with Graves' disease contributed to her becoming reclusive and a semi-invalid. She nonetheless continued to work and publish.

This first volume of letters reveals intimate details about the Rossetti's family life, their illnesses and their accomplishments. It covers a period of 30 years, and over 300 of the letters are to friends and acquaintances, and Christina Rossetti's brothers, William Michael and Dante Gabriel.

With an Introduction and Notes by Katherine McGowran. Christina Rossetti is widely regarded as the most considerable woman poet in England before the twentieth century. No reading of nineteenth century poetry can be complete without attention to this prolific and popular poet. Rosetti's inner life dominates her poetry, exploring loss and unattainable hope. Her divine poems have a freshness and toughness of thought, while many of her love poems are erotic, and as often express love for women as for men. The varied threads of Rossetti's concerns are drawn together in what is perhaps her greatest poem, the strange and ambiguous 'Goblin Market'.

An exciting addition to Everyman's Library: a new series of small, handsome hardcover volumes devoted to the world's classic poets. Our books will have twice as many pages as Bloomsbury Classics' 128pp and will cost 7. 99 against Bloomsbury's 9. 99. The binding, paper and production will be visibly superior in every way to that of Bloomsbury