| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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The relationship between Rossetti and his wife, including the role their marital difficulties may have played in her illness and depression, prompted speculation at the time, and indeed ever since. Helen Rossetti Angeli, anxious to comment authoritatively, describes the family’s attitude toward Lizzie and their understanding of the relationship her uncle had with her:
According to Jan Marsh, Angeli was possibly responding to gossip and tales that had developed around Rossetti in the 1920s and 1930s, especially those hinting at his infidelity and adultery (Legend 79). Speculation about the relationship between Dante Gabriel and Lizzie and elaborate embroidery upon the generally known facts were habits that began before the turn of the century and took firmer hold after William Michael’s death in 1919 (Marsh, Legend 79). Partly to counter such gossip, William Michael and some of the other Rossettis, along with Ford Madox Brown, assisted Joseph Knight in 1887 to publish his The Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This was a widely noted work that, as Marsh points out, appeared in a Great Writers Series (Legend 35). Knight recounts a seamless courtship and life together: Miss Siddal becomes Rossetti’s model and afterward his pupil. They become attached to each other, there is a betrothal, and they marry on May 23, 1860.
But Knight encountered difficulty with the story of a “long engagement” mentioned by William Rossetti. In fact, “none of the correct formalities had been observed: there was no announcement, no ring,