Rossetti, Christina

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) was one of the most important women poets writing in nineteenth-century England. Her simple, tender lyrics exhibit a remarkable warmth, directness, and passion for truth. She was born in London December 5, 1830, to Gabriele and Frances (Polidori) Rossetti, and was the younger sister to artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Although her fundamentally religious temperament was closer to her mother's, this youngest member of a remarkable family of poets, artists, and critics inherited many of her artistic tendencies from her father. In 1848 she became engaged to James Collinson, one of the minor Pre-Raphaelite brethren, but the engagement ended after he reverted to Roman Catholicism. She first published her poetry in the Pre-Raphaelite Journal - The Germ. Later well known poems include 'Remember', and 'When I am Dead My Dearest'.