Rossetti, Christina Georgina 1830-94
English poet

Born in London, the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, she was educated at home, and was to have been a governess, but retired through ill health. Her grandfather printed a pamphlet by her before she was in her teens and her earliest lyrics were published in the first issue of The Germ (1850) under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne. Goblin Market (1862) was her best-known collection, and The Prince's Progress appeared in 1866 and Sing Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book, illustrated by Arthur Hughes, in 1872. She was a devout Anglican, and her later works include A Pageant and Other Poems (1881), Time Flies: A Reading Diary (1895) and The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse (1892).

Bibliography: E W Thomas, Christina Georgina Rossetti (1931)