Christina Rossetti and Illustration

Readers do not always take into account how books that combine image and text make their meanings. But for the Pre-Raphaelite poet Christina Rossetti, such considerations were central. Christina Rossetti and Illustration maps the production and reception of Rossettis illustrated poetry, devotional prose, and work for children, both in the authors lifetime and in posthumous twentieth-century reprints. Lorraine Janzen Kooistras reading of Rossettis illustrated works reveals for the first time the visual-verbal aesthetic that was fundamental to Rossettis poetics. Her exhaustive archival research brings to light new information on how Rossettis commitment to illustration and attitudes to copyright and control influenced her transactions with publishers and the books they produced. Janzen Kooistra also tracks the poets reception in the twentieth century through a complex web of illustrated books produced for a wide range of audiences. Analyzing an impressive array of empirical data, Janzen Kooistra shows how Rossettis packaging for commodity consumptionby religious presses, publishers of academic editions and childrens picture books, and makers of erotica and collectiblesinfluenced the reception of her work and her place in literary history.