Dante Gabriel Rossetti
His Family-Letters, with a Memoir by William Michael Rossetti

This two-volume work, published in 1895, illuminates the life of a Victorian poet and painter through letters and a memoir.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Author), William Michael Rossetti (Edited by)

9781108052054, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 June 2012

486 pages, 5 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.8 cm, 0.61 kg

The Rossettis were one of the most remarkable and talented families in Victorian Britain. Of the two parents and three siblings, Dante Gabriel (1828–82) and Christina (1830–94) stood out, but throughout their lives they remained a tightly-knit unit. William Michael (1829–1919), who published this two-volume work in 1895, was the family record keeper and in the memoir of his brother we have an unmatched account of the family dynamic. He was not always candid about his brother's affairs but his biography is unparalleled for its fresh directness. Unlike all subsequent biographers, William wrote from the inside, and even if he was unable to tell the whole story, the intimate details of the day-to-day life of the great painter and poet have about them the ring of truth and authenticity. Volume 1 is given over to William's extensive and sympathetic memoir of his brother's life.

Preface
Memoir
1. Birth
2. Parentage
3. Relatives
4. Childhood
5. Acquaintances in childhood
6. Childish book-reading and scribbling
7. School
8. Home-life during school
9. Study for the painting profession
10. Student-life
11. Friends towards 1847
12. Madox Brown, Holman Hunt, Millais
13. The Praeraphaelite Brotherhood
14. First exhibited picture, 1849
15. The Germ
16. Paintings and writings, 1849–53
17. Miss Siddal
18. John Ruskin
19. Work in 1854–5–6
20. Oxford men and work
21. Work in 1858–9
22. marriage
23. Married life
24. Work in 1860–1
25. Death of Mrs Dante Rossetti
26. Settling in Cheyne Walk
27. Work from 1862 to 1868
28. Incidents, 1862 to 1868
29. Beginnings of ill-health
30. Preparations for publishing poems
31. Art-work from 1869 to summer 1872
32. The poems, 1870
33. The fleshly school of poetry
34. Hypochondria and illness
35. Stay and work at Kelmscott, 1872–4
36. London and elsewhere, 1874–8
37. Incidents and transactions, 1874–81
38. Paintings and poems
39. Dante's dream
40. Cumberland and London
41. Birchington-on-Sea
42. Death and funeral
43. Personal details
44. Rossetti as painter and poet.

Subject Areas: The arts: general issues [AB]