Best known work

• 'Goblin Market' and other Poems, 1862

Genres

• Poetry
• Fiction - Short Stories

Nom de plume

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Ellen Alleyn

Social class

Middle class

Parental background

A family of artists, poets and critics.

At publication of best known work

• Age: 32
• Marital status: Unmarried
• Number of children: 0

Physical description

In her young years she was "pale, narrow-jawed, with large-lidded eyes and long, uncurled hair" but quickly lost her looks as the result of illness. "Photographs of her from the 1870s show a stout, swarthy, undistinguished-looking Victorian matron" (Lindsay Duguid, ODNB) "In early life she is described as really lovely in appearance, with warm brown hair, peculiar eyes of hazel and blue-gray, one hue shifting into the other, with an expression of pensive sweetness in her countenance". She is also described as slender and olive-complexioned. (The Methodist Review Sept, 1898).

Did you know?

Rosetti, being from a very gifted and influential family, started to compose poetry before she could write, and wrote her first poem when she was 11 for her mothers birthday. She went on to write over fifty poems before her 16th birthday.

Additional information

There are lots of resources devoted to Rosetti including the Victorian Web and the Poetry Foundation.