Christina Georgina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was an English poet whose work joined Victorian lyric craft with sustained Christian devotion. Born in London on December 5, 1830, she was the youngest child of Gabriele Rossetti, an Italian poet, political exile, and Dante scholar, and Frances Polidori Rossetti. Her mother educated her at home, and she grew up in a notably literary and artistic family that included the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the critic William Michael Rossetti.

Rossetti's religious formation became closely associated with the Tractarian, or Oxford Movement, current within the Church of England. For many years she worshiped at Christ Church, Albany Street, and biblical language, renunciation, mortality, divine love, judgment, and Christian hope became recurring concerns in her poetry. Her literary reputation was established by Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), followed by The Prince's Progress and Other Poems (1866), Sing-Song (1872), and A Pageant and Other Poems (1881).

Alongside her poetry, Rossetti produced substantial devotional prose. Her books include Annus Domini (1874), Called to Be Saints (1881), Time Flies (1885), and The Face of the Deep (1892), a devotional commentary on Revelation in which “None Other Lamb” first appeared. She died in London on December 29, 1894. Her lasting importance rests on a body of poetry and devotional writing marked by biblical allusion, compressed imagery, spiritual self-examination, and disciplined attention to language.