Christina Georgina Rossetti

Born in London on December 5, 1830, Christina Georgina Rossetti grew up in a remarkably literary and artistic family. Her father, Gabriele Rossetti, was an Italian poet and scholar, and her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti became a central figure in the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Christina wrote from an early age and went on to become one of the most admired English poets of the nineteenth century.

Her best-known books include Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), The Prince’s Progress (1866), and the children’s collection Sing-Song (1872). Readers have long been drawn to the way her poems combine plain language with dreamlike imagery, spiritual feeling, and emotional precision. She also wrote devotional prose and poetry, and her religious beliefs shaped much of her work.

Rossetti’s poetry has lasted because it can feel both intimate and mysterious at once. She could write tenderly for children, meditate seriously on faith and mortality, and create unforgettable dramatic poems that still invite new interpretations. She died in London on December 29, 1894, but her voice remains one of the most distinctive in Victorian literature.