Christina Rossetti (Critical Heritage II)

This long-awaited volume in the Critical Heritage series presents the reception of Christina Rossetti’s work by her Victorian readers and integrates their critical responses with the evidence of her literary life and publication history. It presents the responses in unpublished material – especially in correspondence – alongside public responses in periodicals and books, and it covers responses during the composition and publishing of her works in addition to those that follow her appearances in print. The opinions of her readers – including her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti and her publisher Alexander Macmillan – are integrated with the evidence of Rossetti’s own letters. The volume draws on hundreds of manuscript sources unnoticed in scholarship in order to provide the most accurate available literary biography and publication history of Rossetti, illuminating many aspects of her writing life – including her involvement with the Portfolio society and her relation with Macmillan – which have been misunderstood.

Christina Rossetti: The Critical Heritage sets a new foundation for the study of one of the great English poets. It will be an indispensable resource for scholars and students of Christina Rossetti and Victorian literary culture.

Simon Humphries was formerly a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and is a Member of Linacre College, Oxford. His publications include the Oxford annotated edition of Christina Rossetti’s Poems and Prose (2008).