The Rossetti Diaries by Kathleen Williams Renk is a reimagining of the lives of two Victorian-era artists, Elizabeth Siddal and Christina Rossetti, who were connected to the famous Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists. Their stories are framed by a parallel one, set in 2019, in which the historian and amateur artist Maggie Winegarden discovers their diaries in a church crypt.
Maggie visits Hastings after a falling-out with her partner, Bethany Cross, who is a fellow academic and a former poet. Their argument revolves around Bethany’s insistence that Maggie should focus on her scholarship at the expense of painting. In Hastings Maggie at first proceeds with her planned research project. Through a conversation with the caretaker of St Clement’s Church, she is informed that the church—the site of Elizabeth’s marriage to Christina’s brother Dante Gabriel—holds a cache of Dante’s writings. When the papers turn out to have belonged to Christina and Elizabeth, not Dante, Maggie becomes suspicious of the reason the vicar lied about them being Dante’s, and ‘unimportant’. So, she digs deeper, and in the process excavates her own artistic aspirations and desires.
Bulk of the novel is taken up by the story of Elizabeth (‘Lizzie’) and Christina, spanning the period from 1845 to 1870. It details their troubled childhoods, marked by poverty and stifling of artistic aspirations on Lizzie’s side, and by trauma, illness, and religious zealotry on Christina’s part. The lives of these two different, yet kindred spirits, begin to first orbit each other when Lizzie becomes involved with the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1849. She poses as a model for Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his colleagues in the Brotherhood, with Dante quickly becoming obsessed with Lizzie. It takes a long while before these two dark stars finally collide. When they finally do, through one of Christina’s poems, their affinity forges a passionate friendship and a fruitful artistic collaboration. Kathleen Williams Renk allows their dreams of a different world to become reality, if for a short while.
Writing and Story
The goal that Renk set before herself was an ambitious one. From what we know of the lives of Christina Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal, the two were never on intimate terms. Yet the fact that there is very little we do know about their relationship (or lack thereof) is what allows Renk to work her magic. She fills the historical blank space with a bold ‘what if?’
This imagining of a friendship and a love affair between the two artists reminded me a lot of the fictionalized imagining of Emily Dickinson’s life by Alena Smith in her Apple TV-produced series Dickinson (2019-2022). In both cases, the fictionalized accounts draw inspiration from the art of the women they depict, primarily their poetry.
We have little in the way of letters or diaries of either Lizzie or Christina. By deploying the idea of secret diaries, hidden from sight by family members (Christina’s brother William) who were concerned about the reputation of both women should a sapphic affair become public. This echoes the censorship that was applied to Emily Dickinson’s work in the first editions of her poetry. It is a clever device, but does the content which Renk imagines live up to the promise it sets?
To make the long story short: yes, yes it does.
The Rossetti Diaries is a picture of Elizabeth Siddal and Christina Rossetti not as the mainstream view of them was back in the Victorian Era, nor as many biographers continue to depict them to this day. The novel in particular criticizes the image of Siddal as ‘a supermodel’. Renk follows the biographer Jan Marsh, who wrote about both women, by exploring the lives of these artists beyond the facades of sickly, melancholy maidens.
Although its narrators can be heavy-handed at times in their musings about women’s place in society at the time, the critique of the art world, the ideas of geniuses and muses, is well made. The emotional turbulence that both heroines—Elizabeth in particular—go through in their relationship with Dante Gabriel and with their own art, are powerful. I particularly liked the way the novel explored Siddal’s enduring impulse to create, how art is centered in her self-perception: she must create, or she will not exist. The imagined relationship between Lizzie and Christina serves as a powerful vision of the potential of women’s friendships in their self-expression. The two create a colony of female artists, and offer us a glimpse into a world where women are free to be themselves, unfetter by society’s restrictions or men’s prejudice towards female artists.
Pros
While the love story between these two artists was sweet and heart-wrenching, I believe the most valuable contribution of the novel is the exploration of Siddal’s relative invisibility as an artist. Her ‘tutoring’ by her lover Dante Gabriel Rossetti is critiqued, as are his reactions to any perceived overshadowing of him by Lizzie. My favorite part of this arc was the connection between Siddal and the protofeminist Langham Street circle of women artists and activists. Siddal was indeed friends with several of the members of this historical society, and the novel shines at its brightest when it brings all these remarkable women together in a true and creative sisterhood.
I was also impressed at the way Elizabeth and Christina’s poetry and art was interweaved with the story. Renk did a brilliant job at establishing her vision of their relationship by incorporating their works in the narrative. They are both precursors to and products of their imagined partnership, and were a pleasure to reread (I am a huge fan of Christina Rossetti).
Cons
The most significant flaw of the novel is its relative brevity. The story spans some 25 years, and as a consequence many plot points and emotional beats are rushed through. Elizabeth falling in love with Dante is told, not shown. Because of that it’s difficult to understand what exactly drew her to him to that extent, and why she was unable to leave him for so long.
Another major downside for me personally, as a Rossetti fan, was the downplaying of or skirting the issue of Christina’s religious beliefs. Whatever her relationship with Lizzie might have been, her poetry indicates that it would have certainly caused her a lot of internal turmoil, with shame and guilt aplenty. By not confronting this, The Rossetti Diaries offers a sweeter, wish-fulfilling fantasy more palatable to the 21st century audience, but at a cost of faithfulness.
Although there are minor anachronisms regarding the geography and architecture of London, those don’t really impact the quality of the story.
The Conclusion
While a flawed work, The Rossetti Diaries is an emotional tour-de-force, even if the reader is familiar with the fate of its heroines. The novel does an excellent job at painting the inner worlds of female artists in a conservative, heteronormative society of Victorian England. It goes a step further than that in its exploration of the turbulent relationship of Elizabeth Siddal and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as many of the problems present in it are very much relevant to this day.
Finally, in its imagining of a friendship and a lesbian love-affair between Elizabeth and Christina Rossetti, it makes a case for the power of women working together in sisterhood, even within the confines of a male-dominated world.
Whether one is already a fan of the work of these two women, as I am, or is completely new to them, The Rossetti Diaries is a treasure trove. Will you peek inside?
Excerpt from The Rossetti Diaries by Kathleen Williams Renk
When I finished reading it, I said, “Gabriel is correct that you and I are much alike; our poems dwell on death. But how different is the tone and message here in the first poem, where the dead beloved seeks her lover to travel to the next world with her, and thus the beloved will finally possess the lover’s soul.”
I saw her face turn pink and realised that I had touched a nerve. I dared not discuss her relationship with my brother, but I have sensed, ever since I saw his paintings of her, that she feels great melancholy because he likely does not give himself fully to her as she would wish. He always has been selfish and egocentric and therefore, even though obsessed with her stunning beauty, he cannot become the lover she would wish him to be.
I continued, “If you don’t mind this observation, the second poem conveys more sadness than my own poetry imparts. Do you genuinely believe that one can never attain love on this earth?”
“I fear it’s true,” she replied, as she looked down at her hands in her lap.
I fear that my brother has severely injured her, broken her spirit and her heart.
Her poetry is exquisite, and I told her so. It does resemble mine in content; however, it does not imitate my own. Perhaps it demonstrates that we have great affinity for one another and are genuine kindred spirits, despite our differences in upbringing and life’s circumstances. Perhaps we are like Aurora Leigh and her Marian Erle in EBB’s epic, the fallen woman that Aurora befriends. I hesitate to call Miss Siddal a fallen woman though. I have no knowledge of her carnal experience; I must assume that, like me, she is free from taint, despite the goblins’ lure.
Perhaps Miss Siddal and I can be such friends that the melancholy can lift from her soul and mine as well. When two hearts share affinity, surely sadness cannot reside therein.
After she left, I quickly scribbled these lines:
I long for one to stir my deep—
I have had enough of help and gift—
I long for one to search and sift
Myself, to take myself and keep.
At one time, Gabriel had suggested that Miss Siddal illustrate my collection of poems that I hoped to publish. Now, I am most interested in writing a poem about two sisters, me, and my sister Maria. Perhaps Miss Siddal and I can discuss the narrative poem, and she could sketch out a few ideas.
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Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 9781960373151
Publisher: Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company
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