Christina Rossetti and Illustration: A Publishing History (review)

My friend, a poet, remarked the other day that she doesn't think poems should be illustrated. I hope she will read this book. Not only is it a fascinating, thoroughly researched, well-written, and perceptive study of the illustrations of Christina Rossetti's poetry, but it also provides a convincing argument that illustrations can be an integral part of a poem, and may be helpful, even essential, to its artistic and commercial success.

Kooistra investigates Rossetti's own visual sense, citing her early attempts to become a professional artist, her assembling of illustrated scrapbooks for children and hospital patients, her closeness to the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic, her familiarity with the emblematic tradition, and her belief in Tractarian sacramentalism, with its emphasis on ritual, symbols, and the revelation of God'smessage in nature, the Bible, and utensils of everyday life. These influences helped her to appreciate the possibilities of a visual dimension in poetry. Christina Rossetti initially wished to illustrate her own works, but felt her talents inadequate. Realizing the importance of the presentation of her poems, she was careful, as far as she was able through copyright ownership, to retain power over the publication of her poems. She worked closely with her illustrators, often using her own sketches for suggestions.

Important to Kooistra's analysis is a theory she calls materialist hermeneutics, i.e., the study of all the circumstances surrounding the publication of Rossetti's poetry: the public sensibility, the changing commerce of publication, the influences of the early illustrations on subsequent artists, and the target audience. Rossetti wrote poetry for adults, for children, and for a religious audience. Her poetry for adults and children was frequently illustrated; her religious poetry, the largest number of her poems, was rarely illustrated, though it was broken up and published by the SPCK (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) in a variety of combinations and formats. The book is especially impressive in its analysis of the changes in publications for children, and in the adult market for gift books and collector editions. Thus, it is not the content of the poetry that is of primary interest to Kooistra, but the whole collaborative effort involved in creation, publication, sale, and readership.

Periodicals are not neglected. Rossetti's first poetic publication was in the Athenaeum in 1848; her first illustrated poem appeared in Once a Week in 1859, illustrated by John Everett Millais. She subsequently published other poems in the Athenaeum, the Germ, and Macmillan's Magazine, but preferred periodicals which regularly included illustrations, such as the Magazine of Art, Once a Week, the Shilling Magazine, the Argosy, the Century Guild Hobby Horse, the Quarto, and Atlanta. She also sought out illustrated American magazines such as Scribner's Monthly, and the chil-dren's magazines Wide-Awake and St. Nicholas Magazine. Kooistra also notes reviews of Rossetti's work in the Academy, Athenaeum, Bookman, Catholic World, Outlook, Studio, the Reader, and the Times.

The second section of the book deals with twentieth-century illustrations of her work, particularly Sing-Song and Goblin Market. These illustrations did not have Rossetti's controlling hand and sensibility, as had the Victorian illustrations, and show great variety of form, interpretation, and audience. Sing-Song, a collection of over 100 poems, one of the few Victorian poems written for children, became an immediate classic upon [End Page 78 its publication in 1872. Generations of children learned it in school or were read it by their parents. It gained a double readership of children and adults, with the children, when grown, often reading it to their children, and thus continued to be a classic through two centuries. Initially illustrated by Arthur Hughes, it has had a number of subsequent illustrators. Kooistra reproduces 11 by Hughes, three by others. Goblin Market, Ros-setti's best-known poem, was first illustrated by her brother, Dante Gabriel, and subsequently by Laurence Housman and many others, of which Kooistra...