Præraphaelite diaries and letters — Dante Alighieri — John Shaqi
Præraphaelite diaries and letters
Dante Alighieri · en
This instalment, as the reader will readily perceive, consists of
three several things, not directly connected the one with the other,
but all bearing upon the Præraphaelite movement. There is:--1. An
early correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, beginning (for
curiosity’s sake) in April 1835, when he was not quite seven years of
age, and going on to March or April 1854, just before the date when
my compilation entitled _Ruskin, Rossetti, Præraphaelitism_ (1899)
begins; and with this are included two letters from our Father. 2.
Some letters from Ford Madox Brown to his first Wife, Elizabeth
(Bromley), December 1844 to May 1845, followed by a much longer item,
extracts from his Diary from 4th September 1847 to 6th January 1856:
some passages from this Diary, relating to Dante Rossetti and his
surroundings, were given in my compilation above-named, and these
are, of course, omitted here. 3. Extracts from the P.R.B. Journal,
which I, as a member of the Brotherhood acting as its Secretary,
kept from 15th May 1849 to 29th January 1853. Thus the entire range
of dates in this volume is from April 1835 to January 1856; and from
1847 to 1856 it is tolerably detailed and copious.
It will be seen that the three constituent parts of this book overlap
to a large extent. The most important of the three is--as I think
most readers will say--the writing of Madox Brown. I have given the
precedence to the Rossetti correspondence simply because it begins at
the earlier date.
It seems superfluous for me to write any more here. My object in the
present volume (as in one or more that have preceded it) is not to
give any continuous narrative or dissertation of my own, but to set
forth original documents, with such introductory or annotating matter
as may make them plain. Matter of this sort is furnished in connexion
with each of the three items which make up the book: and so I leave
it in the reader’s hands. He may perchance find it informing in some
parts, and amusing in at any rate as many.
WM. M. ROSSETTI.
London.
July 1899.
PRÆRAPHAELITE
DIARIES AND LETTERS.
SOME EARLY CORRESPONDENCE OF DANTE
GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
SOME EARLY CORRESPONDENCE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
In the course of some recent researches among old family documents
I put together the enclosed specimens--consisting of twenty-four
letters from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to various persons, 1835 to 1854,
and of two letters addressed to him by his father, 1853.