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This is a delightful novella of love, matrimony, and sisterhood firmly in the tradition of Jane Austen, and displaying all the imaginative flair and linguistic prowess that distinguish Christina Rossetti's best-loved verse. When William Charlmont is lost at sea, his devoted wife lies dying in childbirth and charges Catherine, their eldest daughter, to await his return. Years later, and now in her thirties, Catherine remains faithful to her promise, resigning herself to a life of spinsterhood. Her two sisters, however, are under no such obligation, and while Lucy loves and loses from afar, the carefree Jane resolves to make a prosperous marriage and become a lady of fortune. Commonplace is a charmingly witty tale of the tortuous path a girl must take to secure a suitable match. One of the most important of the Victorian women poets, and a member of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Christina Rossetti is best known as the author of Goblin Market and Other Poems.

From the PREFATORY NOTE: THE earliest of these tales dates back to 1852, the latest was finished in 1870: a lapse of years sufficient to account for modifications of tone and style. 'Pros and Cons,' and 'The Waves of this Troublesome World,' were written each with a special object; which special object will, I hope, be accepted as my apology if the latter tale is judged too childish. Not one of the stories is founded on fact. This might not seem worth stating, had I not reason to fear that one or two of my kindest friends have viewed 'The Lost Titian' somewhat in the light of an imposture. I therefore take this opportunity of putting on record that I am not conversant with any tradition which points to the existence of a lost picture by that great master with whose name I have made free. C. G. R. April 1870.

Those who have known Miss Rossetti's handiwork from the time when, under the pseudonym of "Ellen Alleyn," she produced her masterly paraphrase of "Ecclesiastes" and her exquisite sad lyric "Dreamland," up to these later years of poetic labour productive of such results as the dirge in the "Prince's Progress," would pronounce " Commonplace " a title most undescriptive of anything that lady could possibly produce in verse or prose; and while " Commonplace " is a very capital title for the chief story in this volume, the book is just as far from commonplace as the author's accustomed audience would anticipate. We shall not attempt to assign to this work among novellettes the same standing that Miss Rossetti's songs and sonnets take among sonnets and songs, because Miss Rossetti is simply the poet of female poets who has reached in England the highest point of executive merit: while we could name many women who have written novelettes superior to "Commonplace" as well in execution as in conception. Nevertheless we find the three sisters who are the chief actors in "Commonplace," as also the accessory ladies therein, drawn with an admirable precision and insight, indicative of a very acute inward and outward study of female character and motive; and it is a pity that the two male characters, who should, for perfect balance, have been at least as well defined, are indicated just too faintly to take their proper standing in the reader's mind. For realizing the entirety of a limited soul, and for exhibiting the eager interest of lives of the most limited scope, and for doing this without affectation or strain or exaggeration, we can only compare this chief story in the volume to those imperishable novels wherein Jane Austen portrayed the quiet country life of her quiet circle; but, before the living author can sit on the same bench as her great Literary Notices. 259 dead predecessor occupies in the temple of fame, she must develop that calm splendid faculty of laying out a book and bringing all its actors up to the same level of unmistakable vitality that we see displayed in the "Commonplaces" of Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey. -The London Quarterly Review [1871]

'Jan Marsh's book is the best researched and fullest biography of Rossetti we have yet had.' Fiona MacCarthy, New York Review of Books'Although never formally part of the Pre-Raphaelite poetic school, which included her brother Gabriel, William Morris, and Algernon Swinburne, Christina Rossetti has always been linked to it. [Jan Marsh] gives full attention to both the individual and her unique variety of fantastic and devotional poetry... Marsh delineates an appealing person while examining her adolescent nervous breakdown, abortive engagement to a lapsed Catholic painter, frustrated love for an absentminded scholar, and relationships with her devout but hearty sister, Maria, and with her brothers... The author's steady, sympathetic course through Rossetti's divided life enables readers to delve into the intense and original self most fully expressed in her poetry.' Kirkus Review