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Goblin Market and Other Poems is Christina Rossetti's first volume of poetry, published by Macmillan in 1862. Although Rossetti herself said that she ‘did not mean anything profound by this fairy tale – it is not a moral apologue’, that hasn’t stopped people reading a remarkable range of theories into it, some more far-fetched than others.Illustration for the cover of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti This is the main reason it’s so popular with critics and lecturers: you can read it in so many different ways, and use it to illustrate a huge range of points about Victorian life and literature. It’s also been set to music several times, and dramatised.Ģ.

It also lends itself to illustrations: there have been lots, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Arthur Rackham, to Kinuko Craft in Playboy in 1973 (yes, I know). The threat, the fear, the fall, and the happy, moral ending, have had a strong appeal for over a century. Laura succumbs, and wastes away, seeming likely to die Lizzie offers herself to the goblins, and eventually both girls are saved. The poem also has a plot, unusually: it tells a story, of two girls, Laura and Lizzie, who are tempted by enchanted fruit offered to them by goblins. Really good it has an irregular style which doesn’t appeal to everyone (Ruskin didn’t like it), but there are pa ssages which follow a regular rhythm which can almost be chanted, followed by passages of irregular rhythms, cross-rhymes and para-rhymes, which give the poem an interesting texture and make it appealing to read. However, there are two very good reasons why ‘Goblin Market’ has become so central to Rossetti’s work.ġ.

This is misleading, in my opinion – her other poems take very different approaches, use different poetic styles, and, most importantly, focus much more on Christianity, full of biblical references. So for readers and critics alike, ‘Goblin Market’ has come to be seen as emblematic of Rossetti’s oeuvre. First published in 1862, it’s her most anthologised and taught poem, not to mention her most popular (the other favourites are ‘ In the Bleak Midwinter‘ and ‘Remember’ – this last most often read at funerals).

Since I am currently at the marvellous Gladstone’s Library writing a chapter on Christina Rossetti’s most famous poem, ‘Goblin Market’, I thought perhaps I should write about it here.