DGR published only five books in his lifetime. One of these, Dante and His Circle (1874), is a second edition—revised and reorganized—of his first book, The Early Italian Poets (1861). The other three books are similarly related and conceived. His first volume of original verse was to be published soon after the 1861 volume and titled Dante at Verona and Other Poems. Upon the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal, he abandoned this plan, but later incorporated this material into Poems (1870), which would find its contents revised, augmented, and redistributed in his two last volumes, Poems. A New Edition (1881) and Ballads and Sonnets (1881). Given this relatively modest output, one is impressed by the stature and influence his work attained; both Ruskin and Pater regarded DGR as the most important cultural
figure of late nineteenth-century England.
DGR's imposing presence owed much to his work in the other arts, of course, and particularly to his pictorial work. Besides, all his work issued from a driving set of coherent
imaginative interests. The physique of his five books illustrate this coherence very clearly. He designed them himself as part of an effort to create the book as a kind of total aesthetic object or work. Indeed, one of DGR's most important fields of work was in book design, where his innovative ideas were quickly picked up and exploited. Once
again, he executed only a small set of book designs—most of them for family and close friends—but these works were so brilliantly conceived that their influence went wide and
deep.
Beginning with his two volume edition in 1886, William Michael Rossetti published a series of collected editions of his late brother's work. These editions were ultimately grouped together in a single volume,
The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911).
![Page Images Available for Poets Chiefly Before Dante [Part I of The Early Italian
Poets]](http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/thumbs_small/1-1861.yale.title.jpg "Go to the Commentary for Poets Chiefly Before Dante [Part I of The Early Italian
Poets]")
Books by writers other than Rossetti are available.
Also see Rossetti's designs for book bindings.
DGR published only five books in his lifetime. One of these, Dante and His Circle (1874), is a second edition—revised and reorganized—of his first book, The Early Italian Poets (1861). The other three books are similarly related and conceived. His first volume of original verse was to be published soon after the 1861 volume and titled Dante at Verona and Other Poems. Upon the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal, he abandoned this plan, but later incorporated this material into Poems (1870), which would find its contents revised, augmented, and redistributed in his two last volumes, Poems. A New Edition (1881) and Ballads and Sonnets (1881). Given this relatively modest output, one is impressed by the stature and influence his work attained; both Ruskin and Pater regarded DGR as the most important cultural figure of late nineteenth-century England.
DGR's imposing presence owed much to his work in the other arts, of course, and particularly to his pictorial work. Besides, all his work issued from a driving set of coherent imaginative interests. The physique of his five books illustrate this coherence very clearly. He designed them himself as part of an effort to create the book as a kind of total aesthetic object or work. Indeed, one of DGR's most important fields of work was in book design, where his innovative ideas were quickly picked up and exploited. Once again, he executed only a small set of book designs—most of them for family and close friends—but these works were so brilliantly conceived that their influence went wide and deep.
Beginning with his two volume edition in 1886, William Michael Rossetti published a series of collected editions of his late brother's work. These editions were ultimately grouped together in a single volume, The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911).