A captivating selection of enduring verse by one of the Victorian era's most beloved poets
Christina Rossetti is unique among Victorian poets for the sheer range of her subject matter and the variety of her verse forms. Weaving connections between love and death, triumph and loss, heavenly joys and earthly pleasures, Rossetti's poems startle the imagination with their extraordinary truth, beauty, and intensity. This first fully annotated collection, based on the definitive texts, brings together love lyrics, sonnets, hymns, ballads, the vast body of her devotional poetry, and...

'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...

"Maude" was written when Christina Rossetti was 19 and examines the heroine's struggle to resist the notion that modesty and domesticity constitute the duties of women. "On Sisterhoods" by Dinah Mulock Craik advocates the encouragement of Anglican sisterhoods.