Rossetti by Lucien Pissarro — Read

During a visit to Penkill the thought of publishing his early poems occurred to him. Towards the end of 1869 he was busy with their preparation. Some of them were in circulation in manuscript in a more or less finished condition and some others were buried with his wife. As a relief from the strain of painting he began to write again. "The Ballad of Troy Town," part of "Eden Bower," and the "Stream's Secret," were among the new poems. He thought at first to collect as many of the earlier works as he could remember, together with those of which friends had manuscript copies, and to have them set up in type as the foundation of a possible volume. But he was persuaded with difficulty to apply for permission to open the grave of his wife in order to recover the buried manuscript. In 1870 the book, under the title, "Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti," was published by Mr. F. S. Ellis, then in King Street, Covent Garden. Round Rossetti and his buried poems a sort of legend had been growing up which, aided by his fame as a painter, guarded his work against the indifference with which a volume of verses by an unknown poet is bound to be received. The book proved a great success and within a week or two Rossetti found himself in possession of L300.

This success was not achieved without raising some jealousy. Mr. Buchanan, under the pseudonym of "Thomas Maitland" rushed into print with the damning essay that appeared in the "Contemporary Review" for October 1871, under the title "The Fleshly School of Poetry." This attack was repeated by the same writer in a pamphlet. Rossetti in ill health and suffering from nervous fancies, considered that there was a conspiracy against him, a view that, had his health been stronger, he would not perhaps have adopted. The publication of the article aggravated his insomnia. Dr. Gordon Hake offered him his house at Roehampton in order to procure a change for the sufferer, who either by accident or of set purpose had taken the contents of a phial of laudanum, and lay for two days between life and death. Prompt treatment, and his strong constitution helped recovery. He was taken to Scotland where he resumed work on a replica of "Beata Beatrix." Out-of-door exercise, early hours, and absence of worries, helped a great deal to bring about his partial recovery. In September 1872 he left Scotland and went to Kelmscott where he shared a fine Elizabethan manor house with William Morris.