Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song

Joshua Fagan (University of St Andrews)
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Immediately popular upon its original release in 1872, the nursery-rhyme collection

Sing-Song

demonstrates Christina Rossetti to be one of the quintessential children’s poets of the Victorian age, along with Edward Lear and Robert Louis Stevenson. In a June 1878 letter, she writes happily of the impression the book made on her niece Olive: “I quite admire our clever little Olive, and am really glad she should be imbued with

Sing-Songs

” (

Family Letters

74). Rossetti deeply cared for the rhymes, and in a July 1881 letter to her brother Dante Gabriel, she opines that

Sing-Song

is a volume “containing some of my best songs” (94).

Compared to Rossetti’s other work, such as the unsettling “Goblin Market,” the elegantly pleasing rhymes of Sing-Song appear rather straightforward in

1630 words

Citation: Fagan, Joshua. "Sing-Song". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 February 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16038, accessed 31 October 2024.]

16038 Sing-Song 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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