William michael rossetti biography of christopher

His book reviews for The Germ marked the beginning of his long career as a literary critic. William also wrote art criticism, initially for The Critic , and from November until for The Spectator. William was the chief art critic for The Academy from and was also the British correspondent for the American art publication The Crayon that was published from William's reviews were highly regarded at the time.

In he became a member of the Hogarth Club.

William michael rossetti biography of christopher

In William retired from the Inland Revenue Board, although he continued to serve as an estate-duty advisor for the board until , travelling all over the country to assess art works for estate duty. After his retirement William compiled and edited many invaluable books on his brother Dante Gabriel, his sister Christina , and on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

He was a major contributor to the edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica , primarily writing about Italian Old Masters. He died in London on February 5, and his ashes were buried in the Rossetti family grave at Highgate Cemetery. The family grave in Highgate Cemetery : William's inscription is the lowest of the three on the headstone. When the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in October William was the only member not training to become a professional artist.

He did have some artistic training, however. As boys he and Dante Gabriel had taken up drawing and writing poetry together. My brother thought rather well of my drawings from the life: I was always conscious however of their being stiff and ungenial, and never deceived myself into thinking that I possess an artistic aptitude worth developing.

This was not the only drawing-class that I joined; there was one, for instance, set going by Thomas Seddon. I worked with moderate diligence and a result less than moderate, and finally, still youthful, I dropped the experiment" He edited The Germ , the organ of the brotherhood, and wrote the sonnet printed on the cover of each of its four issues; in it he reviewed Clough's Bothie and Matthew Arnold's Strayed Reveller.

During the following years he wrote art-criticisms for the Spectator and other papers, and republished them, revised, under the title Fine Art, chiefly Contemporary At a later date he contributed articles on art to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. On the death of his brother's wife in , Rossetti joined his brother, Algernon Charles Swinburne [q.

He published a discriminating defence in pamphlet-form of Swinburne's Poems and Ballads and jointly with him, wrote Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition ; to him Swinburne dedicated his essay on William Blake With his brother he had assisted Anne Gilchrist [q. From to Rossetti edited Edward Moxon's series of popular poets, reprinting the introductions in Lives of Some Famous Poets A review of this is included in Swinburne's Miscellanies.

He introduced Walt Whitman to the British public in a volume of selections New York: AMS, American Poems. London: E. Moxon, Humorous Poems. Whitman, Walt. The Correspondence. Edwin Haviland Miller. William Michael Rossetti. London: John Camden Hotten, Prose Works Helen gave birth to his posthumous daughter, Imogen Lucy, in In , Helen and Olivia also published A Girl Among the Anarchists under the pseudonym 'Isabel Meredith'; the novel is a fictional recounting of their experiences in the anarchist movement.

William Michael Rossetti died on 5 February aged 89 and is buried in the Rossetti family grave on the west side of Highgate Cemetery. In the grave he joined his father, mother, Elizabeth Siddal wife of his brother Dante and his sister Christina. The ashes of his son Gabriel Arthur Maddox were interred in the grave in and three other members of the Rossetti family have also been buried there subsequently.

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