This is a fantastic collection of the oft-overlooked poet, Christina Rossetti. I had ordered it at a bookstore, at first thinking I had ordered another book. When it came I was pleasantly surprised. It was much better than the one I thought I had ordered! The timeline and biography that editor Jan Marsh provides at the beginning of the book are invaluable. The book, as the title suggests, is divided into two sections--poetry and prose. What is not indicated is that included in Rossetti's short fiction are some of her letters which grant a bit of insight into her character. As for the fiction, it is evident that if Rossetti had turned her focus in that direction, she could have established a fine writing career. "Commonplace" rivals any of Jane Austen's work, with its wit and insightful charactersation. The poetry section provides a variety of poems that prove Christina Rossetti one of the finest Victorian poets. Ranging from more well-known pieces like "Goblin Market", "Pilgrim's Progress" and the Monna Innominata sonnet sequence; to her less-read poems for children, this edition brings a wide variety of Rossetti's best work together. I highly recommend it.

I would like to say read Christina Rossetti! She's very underappreciated. Her poetry is lyrical and musical with a kind of magic about it. Simple yet elegant. And her themes are on the surface "Victorian" but her sincerity and honesty are refreshing.

The best book I've ever read! This should be made into a movie. I especially liked the bit about women. I'm buying copies for all my friends, grandmothers, horses, fish, business associates, cats, favourite celebrities, and possibly even my english teacher. The twist at the end, when the mild-mannered, cardigan-wearing english teacher turned out to be a harry potter-hating, eco-feminist literary critic in disguise, completely took me by surprise.

In her first major literary effort, Charles has done a wonderful job in reviewing the critical works associated with Christina Rossetti. A must for all personal collections. Recommend highly. A+++

If you want to buy a book of beautiful poems and give them to the one you love, this is it!

With the recent scholarly and popular interest Christina Rossetti's poetry has inspired, P. G. Stanwood and David A. Kent's Selected Prose of Christina Rossetti could not have been published at a more opportune time. Stanwood and Kent point out that though Rossetti was a deeply religious woman and that bulk of her poetry was devotional and her prose religious, scholarship has, as of yet, paid little attention to any but her more secular work. And though there have been a few recently published anthologies of Rossetti's work, these anthologies pay scant attention to her prose. Almost none of her prose has been published since the first editions of the nineteenth century, and these editions are extremely difficult to find. Stanwood and Kent's book provides generous excerpts from all of Rossetti's prose, both her short stories and her religious work. The introductions to each of the excerpts provide publication histories and synopses of the whole works, and the endnotes and the lengthy general introduction provide a highly valuable background to Rossetti's life and work. The recent attention to Rossetti's poetry, viz. "Goblin Market", has drawn attention to Rossetti's imaginative powers and to her literary genius, but Selected Prose reveals a new dimension of Rossetti's mind and interests--she was a woman of a sensitive and powerful intellect, and her grasp and treatment of theological issues is astute and bold for a woman of her time. Anyone seriously interested in Rossetti's work ought to read her prose.