Editing Christina Rossetti (section)

==Early life and education==
Christina Rossetti was born at 38 Charlotte Street (now 110 [[Hallam Street]]), London, to [[Gabriele Rossetti]], a poet and a political exile from [[Vasto]], Abruzzo, Italy, since 1824, and [[Frances Polidori]], the sister of [[Lord Byron]]'s friend and physician [[John William Polidori]].<ref name="Poets.org">{{Cite web|url=https://poets.org/poet/christina-rossetti|title=About Christina Rossetti &#124; Academy of American Poets|first=Academy of American|last=Poets|website=poets.org|access-date=18 April 2023|archive-date=2 October 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231002001225/https://poets.org/poet/christina-rossetti|url-status=live}}</ref> She had two brothers and a sister: [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti|Dante Gabriel]] became an influential artist and poet, and [[William Michael Rossetti|William Michael]] and [[Maria Francesca Rossetti|Maria]] both became writers.<ref name="Poets.org"/> Christina, the youngest, and a lively child, dictated her first story to her mother before she had learnt to write.<ref>"Author Profile: Christina Rossetti", ''Literary Worlds'', BYU.edu, Web, 19 May 2011.</ref><ref name="ODNB">{{Cite ODNB |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/24139 |title=Lindsay Duguid: "Rossetti, Christina Georgina (1830–1894)". ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford: OUP, 2009. Retrieved 15 October 2018. |date=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/24139 |access-date=15 October 2018 |archive-date=9 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231109203539/https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-24139 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{sfn|Thomas|1994}}

Rossetti was educated at home by her mother and father through religious works, classics, fairy tales and novels. Rossetti delighted in the works of [[John Keats|Keats]], [[Walter Scott|Scott]], [[Ann Radcliffe]] and [[Matthew Lewis (writer)|Matthew Lewis]].<ref name="Packer13"/> The influence of the work of [[Dante Alighieri]], [[Petrarch]] and other Italian writers filled the home and influenced Rossetti's later writing. Their household was open to visiting Italian scholars, artists and revolutionaries.<ref name="ODNB"/> The family homes in [[Bloomsbury]] at no. 38 and later no. 50 Charlotte (Hallam) Street (now demolished)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/dante-gabriel-rossetti/|title=Dante Gabriel Rossetti &#124; Poet &#124; Blue Plaques|website=English Heritage|access-date=5 March 2023|archive-date=5 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230305183407/https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/dante-gabriel-rossetti/|url-status=live}}</ref> were within easy reach of [[Madame Tussauds]], London Zoo and the newly opened [[Regent's Park]], which she visited regularly. Unlike her parents, Rossetti felt at home in London and was seemingly happy.<ref name="ODNB"/><ref name="Packer13">Packer, Lona Mosk (1963) ''Christina Rossetti'' University of California Press, pp. 13–17.</ref>

[[File:Christina Rossetti 2.jpg|thumb|right|''Christina Rossetti'', by her brother [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]]]]
In the 1840s, Rossetti's family faced financial troubles due to a deterioration in her father's physical and mental health. In 1843, he was diagnosed with persistent [[bronchitis]], possibly [[pulmonary tuberculosis|tuberculosis]], and faced losing his sight. He gave up his teaching post at [[King's College London|King's College]] and though he lived another 11 years, suffered from depression and was never physically well again. Rossetti's mother began teaching to support the family, and Maria became a live-in governess, a prospect that Christina Rossetti dreaded. At the time her brother William was working for the Excise Office and Gabriel was at art school, leaving Christina increasingly isolated at home.<ref name="Packer20">Packer, Lona Mosk (1963) ''Christina Rossetti'' University of California Press, p. 20.</ref> When she was 14, she suffered a nervous breakdown and left school. Bouts of [[depression (mood)|depression]] and related illness followed. During this period she, her mother and her sister became absorbed in the [[Anglo-Catholicism|Anglo-Catholic]] movement that developed in the [[Church of England]]. Religious devotion came to play a major role in her life.

In her late teens, Rossetti became engaged to the painter [[James Collinson]], the first of three suitors. He, like her brothers Dante and William, was a founding member of the [[avant-garde]] [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]], established in 1848.<ref name="Packer29">Packer, Lona Mosk (1963) ''Christina Rossetti'' University of California Press, p. 29.</ref> The engagement ended in 1850 when he reverted to [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholicism]]. In 1853, when the family had financial difficulties, Christina helped her mother keep a school in Fromefield, [[Frome]], but it did not succeed. A plaque marks the house.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://fromesociety.wordpress.com/plaques/ |title=Plaques |date=16 June 2016 |language=en |access-date=2 June 2019 |archive-date=17 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417113325/https://fromesociety.wordpress.com/plaques/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1854 the pair returned to London, where Christina's father died.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christina-Rossetti |title=Christina Rossetti {{!}} English poet |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en |access-date=2 June 2019 |archive-date=17 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417164307/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christina-Rossetti |url-status=live }}</ref> She later became involved with the linguist [[Charles Cayley]], but declined to marry him, also for religious reasons.<ref name="Packer29"/> A third offer came from the painter [[John Brett (artist)|John Brett]], whom she likewise refused.<ref name="ODNB"/>

Rossetti sat for several of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's paintings. In 1848, she sat for the [[Mary, mother of Jesus|Virgin Mary]] in his first completed oil painting, ''[[The Girlhood of Mary Virgin]]'', and the first work he inscribed with the initials "PRB", later revealed as standing for the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=12802&roomid=3452|title=Tate Gallery|accessdate=31 December 2023}}</ref> The following year she modelled for his depiction of the [[Annunciation]], ''[[Ecce Ancilla Domini]]''. A line from her poem "Who shall deliver me?" inspired a painting by [[Fernand Khnopff]] called ''I lock my door upon myself''. In 1849 she again became seriously ill with depression, and around 1857 had a major religious crisis.<ref name="ODNB"/>