Goblin Market

This lovely hardcover gift edition of Christina Rossetti's most famous poem will enchant readers of all ages. It features four color and 20 black-and-white images as well as a reproduction of a rare Rackham watercolor.

One sister must save the other from a goblin prince in this rich, spooky, and delightfully dark fantasy! "TERRIFICALLY TIMELESS. . . SPLENDID."—Shelf Awareness Lizzie and Minka are sisters, but they’re nothing alike: Minka is outgoing and cheerful, while Lizzie is shy and sensitive. Nothing much ever happens in their sleepy village—there are fields to tend, clothes to mend, and weekly trips to the market, predictable as the turning of the seasons. Lizzie likes it that way. It’s safe. It’s comfortable. She hopes nothing will ever change. But one day, Minka meets a boy. A boy who gives her a plum to eat. He is charming. He is handsome. He tells her that she’s special. He tells her no one understands her like he does—not her parents, not her friends, not even Lizzie. He tells her she should come away with him, into the darkness, into the forest. . . . Minka has been bewitched and ensnared by a zdusze—a goblin. His plum was poison, his words are poison, and strange things begin to happen. Trees bleed, winds howl, a terrible sickness descends on Minka, and deep in the woods, in a place beyond sunshine, beyond reality, a wedding table has been laid. . . . To save her sister, Lizzie will have to find courage she never knew she had—courage to confront the impossible—and enter into a world of dreams, danger, and death. Rich world-building inspired by both Polish folklore and the poetry of Christina Rossetti combines with a tender sister story in this thrilling novel from Diane Zahler. "Lush. . . Dreamy. . . Breath-quickening."—The Horn Book "Resonates with emotion."—BCCB "Believably wrought."—Publishers Weekly "Will entice readers looking for some chills."—Kirkus Reviews

The classic poem, Goblin Market (1862) by Christina Rossetti, tells the story of Lizzie and Laura, who are tempted by the fruit sold by the goblin merchants. In this fully illustrated and beautiful volume, illustrator Georgie McAusland brings the words and story to life. SHORTLISTED in the V&A Illustration Awards and the World Illustration Awards. Breathing new life into the Victorian tradition of illustrated poems, this book reads like a picture story book. The stunning illustrations illuminate and drive the narrative forward as in all good story books. It tells the tale of the two sisters drifting apart as Laura succumbs to the forbidden fruit sold by the goblins, but the bonds of sisterhood prove strong. The poem has fascinated for generations and been the subject of various interpretations. This illustrated version brings the words and story alive for a new generation. Christina Rossetti is considered the foremost female poet of her time, and her poetry still resonates with women's lives today, as she entwines themes of sexuality, sisterhood, love and temptation in her work. All of these themes are encapsulated in Goblin Market. The book includes an introduction to the poem by novelist Kirsty Gunn, so all readers – for pleasure or study – can understand its riches.

A stunning treasury of 86 full-page plates span the famed English artist's career, from Rip Van Winkle (1905) to masterworks such as Undine, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Wind in the Willows (1939).

Have you ever wondered what happened to the faeries you used to believe in? They lived at the bottom of the garden and left rings in the grass and sparkling glamour in the air to remind you where they were. But that was then – now you might find them in places you might not think to look. They might be stacking shelves, delivering milk or weighing babies at the clinic. Open your eyes and keep your wits about you and you might see them. But no one is looking any more and that is hard for a Faerie Queen to bear and Titania has had enough. When Titania stamps her foot, everyone in Faerieland jumps; publicity is what they need. Television, magazines. But that sort of thing is much more the remit of the bad boys of the Unseelie Court, the ones who weave a new kind of magic; the World Wide Web. Here is Puck re-learning how to fly; Leanne the agent who really is a vampire; Oberon’s Boys playing cards behind the wainscoting; Black Annis, the bag-lady from Hainault, all gathered in a Restoration comedy that is strictly twenty-first century.

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" "Death, be not proud," "The Raven," "The Road Not Taken," plus works by Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, many others.

The poetry of Christina Rossetti is often described as ‘gothic' and yet this term has rarely been examined in the specific case of Rossetti's work. Based on new readings of the full range of her writings, from ‘Goblin Market' to the devotional poems and prose works, this book explores Rossetti's use of Gothic forms and images to consider her as a Gothic writer. Christina Rossetti's Gothic analyses the poet's use of the grotesque and the spectral and the Christian roots and Pre-Raphaelite influences of Rossetti's deployment of Gothic tropes.

Originally published as: Mountain interval. New York: H. Holt and Co., 1916.