Christina Rossetti is recognized as the leading woman poet of the nineteenth century in England. Despite recent attention to her life in the form of three new biographies and to her poetry, Rossetti's prose works remain largely inaccessible to students and scholars. For the first time, an edited volume of selected prose by this important Victorian woman artist is made available to her readers. Selected Prose of Christina Rossetti presents the prose works in three modes: expository prose, including her two essays on Dante and two of her contributions to the Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, on 'Leopardi' and on 'Petrarch'; fiction, including the novella Maude, several of her short stories, and Speaking Likenesses; and judicious excerpts from her devotional prose, which consists of six volumes published over a period of eighteen years. This collection will be of interest to specialists in Victorian literature and women's studies, as well as to the general reader.

General Introduction - PART 1: EXPOSITORY PROSE: INTRODUCTION - Selections from the Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography (1857-63): 'Leopardi' and 'Petrarch' - 'Dante: An English Classic' (from Churchman's Shilling Magazine, 1867) - 'Dante: The Poet Illustrated out of the Poem' (from Century Magazine, 1884) - 'The House of Dante Gabriel Rossetti' (1892) - PART 2: FICTION - Introduction - Maude (1850) - From Commonplace, and Other Short Stories (1870): 'Commonplace'; 'Nick'; 'Pros and Cons' - From Speaking Likenesses (1874) - From The Dawn of the Day (1882): 'Two Sketches' - PART 3: DEVOTIONAL PROSE - Introduction - Notes on Genesis and Exodus (no date) - From Annus Domini (1874) - From Seek and Find (1879) - From Called to be Saints (1881) - From Letter and Spirit (1883) - From Time Flies (1885) - From The Face of the Deep (1892) - Selected Bibliography - Index