Editing Christina Rossetti (section)

==Career== 
{{Quote box |width=287px |align=left |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
 |quote =<poem>
'''''Up Hill'''''

Does the road wind up hill all the way?
       ''Yes, to the very end.''
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
       ''From morn to night, my friend.''

But is there for the night a resting-place?
       A roof for when the slow dark hours begin?
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
       ''You cannot miss that inn.''

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
       ''Those who have gone before.''
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
       ''They will not keep you standing at that door.''

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
       ''Of labor you shall find the sum.''
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
       ''Yea, beds for all who come.''
</poem>|source = ''By Christina Georgina Rossetti''<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=kXd4bRr71a4C&dq=Christina+Rossetti+Up+Hill&pg=PA261 ''A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from The Best Poets. With An Introduction by William Cullen Bryant''], New York, J.B. Ford and Company, 1871, pp. 261-262.</ref>}}

[[File:Rossetti-golden head.jpg|thumb|[[Book frontispiece|Frontispiece]] of Christina Rossetti's ''[[Goblin Market]] and Other Poems'' (1862), by her brother [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]]]]

From 1842 onward Rossetti began writing down and dating her poems. Most of them imitated her favoured poets. In 1847 she began experimenting with verse forms such as [[sonnet]]s, hymns and [[ballad]]s, while drawing on narratives from the Bible, folk tales and the lives of saints. Her early pieces often meditate on death and loss in the Romantic tradition.<ref name="Packer13"/> Her first two poems published were "Death's Chill Between" and "Heart's Chill Between", in the ''[[Athenaeum (British magazine)|Athenaeum]]'' magazine in 1848.<ref name=enotes>"Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)," eNotes.com, Web, 19 May 2011.</ref><ref>Jan Marsh, [http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,49155_1_10,00.html Christina Rossetti and the Pre–Raphaelite Brotherhood] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120530235502/http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,49155_1_10,00.html |date=30 May 2012}}</ref> She used the pseudonym "Ellen Alleyne" in the literary periodical, ''[[The Germ (periodical)|The Germ]]'', published by the Pre-Raphaelites from January to April 1850 and edited by her brother William.<ref name="Poets.org"/> This marked the beginning of her public career.<ref name="Cambridge">''The Cambridge Companion to English Poets'' (2011), Claude Rawson, Cambridge University Press, pp. 424–429.</ref>

Rossetti's more critical reflections on the artistic movement her brother had begun were expressed in an 1856 poem "In the Artist's Studio". Here she reflects on seeing multiple paintings of the same model. For Rossetti, the artist's idealised vision of the model's character begins to overwhelm his work, until "every canvas means/ the one same meaning."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Roe |first1=Dinah |title=The Pre-Raphaelites: From Rossetti to Ruskin |date=2010 |publisher=Penguin Classics |page=182}}</ref> Dinah Roe, in her introduction to the Penguin Classics collection of Pre-Raphaelite poetry, argues that this critique of her brother and similar male artists is less about "the objectification of women" than about "the male artist's self-worship".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Roe |first1=Dinah |title=The Pre-Raphaelites: From Rossetti to Ruskin |date=2010 |publisher=Penguin Classics |page=xxvii}}</ref>

Rossetti's first commercially printed collection, ''[[Goblin Market and Other Poems]]'', was published under her own name by Macmillan & Co. in 1862, when she was 31.<ref name="auto">{{Cite ODNB |title=Rossetti, Christina Georgina (1830–1894), poet |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-24139 |year=2004 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/24139 }}</ref> Dante Gabriel Rossetti became his sister's collaborator and created much-praised woodcut illustrations to the book which enhanced the effect of the work and emphasised its sensuality.<ref name=snow/> ''Goblin Market'' was widely praised by critics, who placed her as the foremost female poet of the day; sales, however, were disappointing. She was lauded by [[Gerard Manley Hopkins]], [[Algernon Swinburne]] and [[Tennyson]].<ref name="Cambridge"/> After its publication, Rossetti was named the natural successor to [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]], who had died the year before in 1861.<ref name="Cambridge"/> The title poem, one of her best known, is ostensibly about two sisters' misadventures with goblins, but critics have seen it in various ways including an allegory of temptation and salvation, a comment on Victorian gender roles and female agency, and a work of erotic desire and social redemption.<ref name=snow>{{cite web
| url =https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/christina-rossetti-poetry-and-art/
| title =Christina Rossetti: Interweaving Poetry and Art
| last =Snow
| first =Emily
| date =2023-08-22
| publisher =Daily Art Magazine
| access-date =2023-08-24
| archive-date =24 August 2023
| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20230824122830/https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/christina-rossetti-poetry-and-art/
| url-status =live
}}</ref>

Rossetti worked voluntarily in 1859–1870 at the [[Magdalene asylum|St Mary Magdalene house of charity]] in [[Highgate]], a refuge for ex-prostitutes. It is suggested that ''Goblin Market'' was inspired by "fallen women" she came to know.<ref name="Packer155">Lona Mosk Packer, (1963), ''Christina Rossetti'', University of California Press, p. 155.</ref> There are parallels with [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]'s ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]'' in religious themes of temptation, sin and redemption by vicarious suffering.<ref>Constance W. Hassett, (2005), ''Christina Rossetti: the patience of style'', University of Virginia Press, p. 15.</ref> [[Algernon Swinburne|Swinburne]] in 1883 dedicated ''A Century of Roundels'' to Rossetti, as she adopted his [[roundel (poetry)|roundel]] form in a number of poems, for instance in ''Wife to Husband''.<ref>Christina Rossetti, ''The Complete Poems'', Penguin Books, London, 2001 {{ISBN|978-0-14-042366-2}}.</ref> She was ambivalent about [[women's suffrage]], but many have found [[feminist]] themes in her work.<ref>Pieter Liebregts and Wim Tigges, eds. (1996) ''Beauty and the Beast: Christina Rossetti''. Rodopi Press, p. 43.</ref> She opposed [[slavery in the United States]], [[cruelty to animals]] in prevalent [[vivisection]], and exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution.<ref>Hoxie Neale Fairchild (1939), ''Religious Trends in English Poetry'', Vol. 4, Columbia University Press.</ref>

Rossetti kept a wide circle of friends and correspondents. She continued to write and publish for the rest of her life, mainly devotional work and children's poetry. In the years just before her death, she wrote ''The Face of the Deep'', (1892) a book of devotional prose, and oversaw an enlarged edition of ''Sing-Song'', originally published in 1872, in 1893.<ref name="Harrison">Antony H. Harrison (2004), ''The Letters of Christina Rossetti Volume 4, 1887–1894'', University of Virginia Press, {{ISBN|0-8139-2295-X}}.</ref> She died late the next year.
[[File:Grave of Christina Rossetti.jpg|thumb|Grave of Christina Rossetti in Highgate Cemetery (West side)]]

Rossetti was one of the first female stamp collectors, beginning her collection in 1847, just seven years after the first stamp was issued.<ref>[https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/fine-books-and-manuscripts-n09516/lot.92.html Fine books and manuscripts] sothebys.com
{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415214917/https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/fine-books-and-manuscripts-n09516/lot.92.html |date=15 April 2023 }}</ref>