Few Victorian families were as gifted: Maria Rossetti (1827-1876) was described as talented, enthusiastic, and domineering as a child; in later life she published A Shadow of Dante (1871) and became an Anglican nun (1873); William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) was along with his brother an active member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and became an editor, man of letters, and memoirist; the youngest child, Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830- 1894), became an introspective lyrical poet. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was bilingual from early childhood and grew up in an atmosphere of emigre political and literary discussion. From childhood he intended to be a painter and illustrated literary subjects in his earliest drawings. He was tutored at home in German and read the Bible, William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, The Arabian Nights, Charles Dickens, and the poetry of Sir Walter Scott and George Gordon, Lord
Few Victorian families were as gifted: Maria Rossetti (1827-1876) was described as talented, enthusiastic, and domineering as a child; in later life she published A Shadow of Dante (1871) and became an Anglican nun (1873); William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) was along with his brother an active member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and became an editor, man of letters, and memoirist; the youngest child, Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830- 1894), became an introspective lyrical poet. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was bilingual from early childhood and grew up in an atmosphere of emigre political and literary discussion. From childhood he intended to be a painter and illustrated literary subjects in his earliest drawings. He was tutored at home in German and read the Bible, William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, The Arabian Nights, Charles Dickens, and the poetry of Sir Walter Scott and George Gordon, Lord