Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born in London, of Italian parentage, in
1828. He was educated at King's College School, but became very early a
student of painting, in which art he attained considerable prominence.
He was a member of the famous pre-Raphaelite group of artists and
authors, and was largely responsible for the movement started by them.
In 1861 he published _The Early Italian Poets_, a volume of
translations; in 1870, _Poems_; and in 1881, _Ballads and Sonnets_. His
last days were unhappy, his death in 1882 being hastened by
overindulgence in narcotics.
Rossetti's painting had a marked effect upon his poetry, chiefly in
giving him the faculty of vivid and ornate description. Though
essentially a lyric poet, he revived old English ballad forms with much
success, and his narrative poems are vigorous and spirited. A good short
life of Rossetti is that by Joseph Knight in the Great Writers Series.