W.M. Rossetti as Reluctant Biographer: The Genesis of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, His Family Letters, With a Memoir

Abstract

Explains delays in publication of what was to have been a volume jointly produced by William Rossetti and Theodore Watts-Dunton. Claims Watts-Dunton wanted Rossetti to write his brother’s life story, but Rossetti resisted because his prior biographical and editorial work had made him acutely conscious of the pitfalls and frustrations that a biographer of D.G. Rossetti would have to endure. Believes the strengths and weaknesses of the biography Rossetti eventually produced were products of his family loyalty, sense of limitations in what he could reveal, and personal disinclination to gloss over the darker side of his brother’s personality.