major works of the early years

Literary: Juvenile experiments in dramatic verse and prose: “The Slave” and “Aladdin, or The Wonderful Lamp,” by Gabriel Rossetti, “Painter of Play-Pictures” (both composed around the age of six, in 1834); “Roderick and Rosalba. A Story of the Round Table” (1840); Sir Hugh the Heron (1840–41); “William and Marie” (1841); and “Sorrentino” (1843). Translations: from the German: Bürger’s Lenore (1844), the Nibelungenlied (begun Oct 45, “no trace of it remains” [FLM 104]), and Hartmann von Aue’s Henry the Leper (1846); translations from Dante and the early Italian poets (1845–49). Original poetry: early versions of “The Blessed Damozel,” “My Sister’s Sleep,” “Ave,” “The Portrait,” “Jan Van Hunks,” and a number of sonnets date from around 1847.

Artistic: Surtees includes some 30 drawings executed by DGR prior to 1848, most of them illustrations from literary sources, including Monk Lewis (S.2), The Iliad (S.3), The Arabian Nights (S.7), Sir Walter Scott (S.8), Shakespeare (S.9, 20, 26), Frédéric Soulié’s Les Memoires du diable (S.16), Faust (S.18), Edgar Allan Poe (S.19, 19A–C, 29–30), J. W. Meinhold’s Sidonia the Sorceress (S.22), and A. von Chamisso’s Peter Schlemil (S.28). Among his own works for which illustrative drawings survive are eight “Designs for our own novels,” including his Roderick and Rosalba (S.5), Sorrentino (S.10, 10A), and La Tomba, for a non-extant poem, Lisa ed Elviro (S.11). Among early portrait studies are three of Christina (S.420–22), one of WMR (S.452), and a self-portrait (S.434). The largest collection of DGR’s early drawings is contained in A Rossetti Cabinet, edited by William E. Fredeman (1991), which catalogues, classifies, and reproduces over 125 early works.

summary of the years’ letters

Domestic and family news; early reading; artistic beginnings; drawings for bazaar; Westminster Hall Exhibition; poem and drawing to Smallwood’s; Sketching Club; student in RA School; print purchases; visits to Belgium and illness there; father’s health and eyesight; overtures to established poets.

chronology

The Early Years 1828–1847

1828

(12 May) Born Gabriele Charles Dante Rossetti at 38 Charlotte (now Hallam) Street (baptized 7 Jun 28 at All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, in presence of his godfather, Charles Lyell); second child and first son of Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppi Rossetti and Frances Mary Lavinia Rossetti (née Polidori; married 8 & 10 Apr 26).