Commonplace And Other Short Stories By Christina G Rossetti PDF Download

Those who have known Miss Rossetti's handiwork from the time when, under the pseudonym of "Ellen Alleyn," she produced her masterly paraphrase of "Ecclesiastes" and her exquisite sad lyric "Dreamland," up to these later years of poetic labour productive of such results as the dirge in the "Prince's Progress," would pronounce " Commonplace " a title most undescriptive of anything that lady could possibly produce in verse or prose; and while " Commonplace " is a very capital title for the chief story in this volume, the book is just as far from commonplace as the author's accustomed audience would anticipate. We shall not attempt to assign to this work among novellettes the same standing that Miss Rossetti's songs and sonnets take among sonnets and songs, because Miss Rossetti is simply the poet of female poets who has reached in England the highest point of executive merit: while we could name many women who have written novelettes superior to "Commonplace" as well in execution as in conception. Nevertheless we find the three sisters who are the chief actors in "Commonplace," as also the accessory ladies therein, drawn with an admirable precision and insight, indicative of a very acute inward and outward study of female character and motive; and it is a pity that the two male characters, who should, for perfect balance, have been at least as well defined, are indicated just too faintly to take their proper standing in the reader's mind. For realizing the entirety of a limited soul, and for exhibiting the eager interest of lives of the most limited scope, and for doing this without affectation or strain or exaggeration, we can only compare this chief story in the volume to those imperishable novels wherein Jane Austen portrayed the quiet country life of her quiet circle; but, before the living author can sit on the same bench as her great Literary Notices. 259 dead predecessor occupies in the temple of fame, she must develop that calm splendid faculty of laying out a book and bringing all its actors up to the same level of unmistakable vitality that we see displayed in the "Commonplaces" of Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey. -The London Quarterly Review [1871]