Although Rossetti did not publish his work extensively in the serial press, the pieces he did publish were for the most part carefully and deliberately placed. He was almost as reserved
in his use of periodical publication as he was in relation to the regular art exhibition venues of his place and time.
Several aspects of his involvement with periodicals are especially notable. First and most famously, Rossetti was the principal agent behind the founding of The Germ in 1850—the organ that carried to the public the motivating ideas of the first group of so-called Pre-Raphaelite artists and certain sympathetic associates, like Madox Brown.
Of all the prose and verse that appeared in this celebrated periodical, Rossetti's contributions are far and away the most outstanding. Rossetti was also closely involved with another
periodical, The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, which was launched by William Morris and some friends in 1856 in large measure under the inspiration of Rossetti and his work. Rossetti made a series of important contributions
to this magazine as well. He had a similar if much less intimate involvement with a pair of American art periodicals, The Crayon and The New Path. Both published texts by Rossetti as part of their efforts to acquaint Americans with Pre-Raphaelite ideas, and with Rossettian ideas in particular; and Rossetti was more than
pleased to use these journals as vehicles for disseminating his work.
Two other periodicals have an especially important Rossettian connection. The first is The Athenæum, which he used to publish certain key works from time to time (like the critical essay "The Stealthy School of Criticism" in 1871), and which
also regularly carried F. G. Stephens' critical reviews of new pictures by Rossetti. Because Rossetti was able to work closely with Stephens in the preparation of these reviews, they
served an extremely important function for him—not least because he so rarely exhibited his pictures in public.
The other important periodical is The Fortnightly Review, which printed a number of Rossetti's works at critical times. The most significant of these were the publication (in the spring of 1869) of the initial series of sonnets that
announced the beginning of what would become his textual masterwork, The House of Life; and the reprinting (in December 1869) of a revised version of his early aesthetic manifesto "Hand and Soul". Both of these periodical
printings were clearly arranged as key adjuncts to the publication of his most important book, the Poems (published in the spring of 1870).
Materials about DGR and his work published in later and current scholarly periodicals (for example, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies) are not yet incorporated into the Archive. A notable exception is the large body of drawings published by William E. Fredeman in a special (1991) issue of that periodical under the title A Rossetti Cabinet. We expect, however, that the Archive will be aggregated with these materials in the near future through the mechanism of NINES (the Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-century Electronic Scholarship).
Although Rossetti did not publish his work extensively in the serial press, the pieces he did publish were for the most part carefully and deliberately placed. He was almost as reserved in his use of periodical publication as he was in relation to the regular art exhibition venues of his place and time.
Several aspects of his involvement with periodicals are especially notable. First and most famously, Rossetti was the principal agent behind the founding of The Germ in 1850—the organ that carried to the public the motivating ideas of the first group of so-called Pre-Raphaelite artists and certain sympathetic associates, like Madox Brown. Of all the prose and verse that appeared in this celebrated periodical, Rossetti's contributions are far and away the most outstanding. Rossetti was also closely involved with another periodical, The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, which was launched by William Morris and some friends in 1856 in large measure under the inspiration of Rossetti and his work. Rossetti made a series of important contributions to this magazine as well. He had a similar if much less intimate involvement with a pair of American art periodicals, The Crayon and The New Path. Both published texts by Rossetti as part of their efforts to acquaint Americans with Pre-Raphaelite ideas, and with Rossettian ideas in particular; and Rossetti was more than pleased to use these journals as vehicles for disseminating his work.
Two other periodicals have an especially important Rossettian connection. The first is The Athenæum, which he used to publish certain key works from time to time (like the critical essay "The Stealthy School of Criticism" in 1871), and which also regularly carried F. G. Stephens' critical reviews of new pictures by Rossetti. Because Rossetti was able to work closely with Stephens in the preparation of these reviews, they served an extremely important function for him—not least because he so rarely exhibited his pictures in public.
The other important periodical is The Fortnightly Review, which printed a number of Rossetti's works at critical times. The most significant of these were the publication (in the spring of 1869) of the initial series of sonnets that announced the beginning of what would become his textual masterwork, The House of Life; and the reprinting (in December 1869) of a revised version of his early aesthetic manifesto "Hand and Soul". Both of these periodical printings were clearly arranged as key adjuncts to the publication of his most important book, the Poems (published in the spring of 1870).
Materials about DGR and his work published in later and current scholarly periodicals (for example, in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies) are not yet incorporated into the Archive. A notable exception is the large body of drawings published by William E. Fredeman in a special (1991) issue of that periodical under the title A Rossetti Cabinet. We expect, however, that the Archive will be aggregated with these materials in the near future through the mechanism of NINES (the Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-century Electronic Scholarship).