The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse.

ROSSETTI, Christina.

Published by London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; E. & J. B. Young & Co., New York, 1892

About this Item

First edition, inscribed by the author to her beloved friend Lisa Wilson on the front free endpaper verso, "With much love to my Lisa, Christina G. Rossetti's dear friend. May 4 1892." The friendship between Rossetti and Mary Louisa "Lisa" Wilson's (1850-1934) sprung from an initial correspondence spanning several years before their first meeting in 1885. Wilson first wrote to Christina to thank her "for all the loveliness of thought and exquisite pictures [her poetry] had filled [her] with" (Sandars, p. 254). This book of devotional prose was given to Wilson as a gift before Rossetti's surgery on 25 May 1892, for breast cancer. A letter from William Michael Rossetti to his wife Lucy Madox Brown casts a light on Christina's mindset at the time: "Of course she contemplates immediate death as a possibility. She looks ill, but not extremely ill; spoke calmly and firmly, without concealing some natural sinking of heart at what awaits her" (Peattie, p. 555). Wilson comforted to Rossetti during these painful final years of her life and gifted her friend a collection of verse. Rossetti promptly reciprocated with the poem "To My Fior-di-Lisa", her nickname for Wilson deriving from their playful debates over their favourite flowers, the rose (Christina's) and the lily (Lisa's). "Fiordaliso" is the Italian form of fleur-de-lis, or lily. Wilson has made sporadic pencil notes to the margins, mainly biblical references and some editorial corrections. Roger W. Peattie, Selected Letters of William Michael Rossetti, 1990; Mary F. Sandars, The Life of Christina Rossetti, 1930. Octavo. Original blue cloth, gilt lettering and roll to spine and front cover, blind roll to rear cover, black endpapers. Portion of an Italian letter with pressed flower taped to verso; pressed flowers between pp. 245-6. Wear to extremities, short closed tear to head of front joint, marks to covers, inner hinges split but binding firm. A very good copy.

Seller Inventory # 183085

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse.
• Publisher: London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; E. & J. B. Young & Co., New York, 1892
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)