Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti (1st Edition)

Author: Rossetti, Christina 
Title: Goblin Market and Other Poems 
Illustrator: Rossetti, Dante Gabriel 
Publisher: Macmillan and Co. 
Date: 1862 
Place: London and Cambridge 
Dimensions:  Small 8vo. 17.5cm x 11.5cm 

vii+192pp+16pp(ads)

Blue cloth, gilt titles, board decorations in gilt and blind, the binding designed – together with the title page vignette and frontispiece - by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Deep brown endpapers. Binder’s label to lower edge/spine corner of rear endpaper.

Very Good indeed with minor, almost trivial faults: corners, head and tailcaps lightly curled, a few pinprick white spots of rubbing to the cloth, front gutter with 5cm split to the endpaper from the head. Blank verso of frontispiece foxed, frontispiece and title page vignette a trifle foxed, though, remarkably, contained almost exclusively outside of the printed areas. A handful of foxing spots scattered through the text. Binding tight and square. 
The gilt is bright, the titles pristine, with only minor rubbing to top board gilt.
The text crisp, clean, lacking annotations or inscriptions.

Considered the first volume of poetry of the Pre-Raphaelite movement or its associates to receive general recognition (Freedman). The title poem is a narrative about two young sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who live near a stream. While collecting water they are tempted by the calls of goblins selling exotic fruit, beckoning “come buy, come buy”. Laura succumbs, gorges on the forbidden fruit and withers until nearly dead, before being rescued by her sister Lizzie.

Goblin Market has fascinated readers, critics and scholars for over 160 years. Among its interpreters it has been considered a Christian allegory, by others as a celebration of lesbian sexuality, still others as an economic critique of the period in which it was written and even a kind of nonsense poem. The poem has been adapted for the stage and set to music many times.

Freedman: 44.3, Rossetti: [2]3, Ray: 165,  Mackenzie Bell & Anderson: 345.

An exceptional copy.