Christina Rossetti letter, 1881 December 17

Collection consists of a single letter from the Pre-Raphealite poet Christina Rossetti to an unnamed recipient in the publishing industry. She grants him permission to use poems from three of her published collections in an upcoming "Fine Art Book for Christmas 1882." Rossetti states that there should be no variation of the text from the source material, and that she chose those three collections because she personally holds their copyright.

Christina Rossetti was an English Victorian poet associated with the Pre-Raphealite movement that was founded by her brother, Dante Gabriel. All three of Rossetti's siblings were also writers. Her style is in the Romantic tradition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Rossetti's collections of poetry referenced in this letter, "Sing Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book" and "Pageant and Other Poems" were published in 1872 and 1881, respectively. Rossetti's poem "In the Bleak Midwinter" became widely known after it was set to music and sung as a Christmas carol. Recent scholarship has examined feminist themes in Rossetti's work.