Description: In recent years Christina Rossetti's star has soared. Now, as we have reached the centenary of her death, Rossetti (1830-1894) is considered one of the major poets -- not just one of the major women poets -- of the Victorian era. Leading critics have demonstrated how studies of Rossetti's work, her daily life, her relationships with the Pre-Raphaelites, and her interactions with other women authors of the period can help us understand the unique cultural situation of Victorian women writers. When complete in four volumes, this project will make available all of Rossetti's extant letters, almost two-thirds of which have never been published.

The letters in this second volume "expose a woman of powerful intellect, complex emotions, unshakable convictions, and loving heart." Rossetti, forty-three years old in 1874, is now an established poet with a strong literary reputation among her contemporaries. But, as Harrison points out in his introduction to the volume, "two thirds of her life was over, and its losses were mounting." The marriage of William Michael, the death of her sister, Maria, Dante Gabriel's addiction to chloral and the illness that led to his death in 1882, and the deaths of close personal and family friends overshadow these years. Her own affliction with Graves' disease contributed to her becoming reclusive and a semi-invalid. She nonetheless continued to work and publish.

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