1855-1862: This nine-volume edition will represent the definitive collection of extant Rossetti correspondence, an outstanding primary witness to the range of ideas and opinions that shaped Rossetti's art and poetry. The largest collection of Rossetti's letters ever to be published, it features all known surviving letters, a total of almost 5,800 to over 330 recipients, and includes 2,000 previously unpublished letters by Rossetti and selected letters to him. In addition to this, about 100 drawings taken from within letter texts are also reproduced. In its entirety the collection will give an invaluable and unparalleled insight into Rossetti's character and art, and will form a rich resource for students and scholars studying all aspects of his life and work. The correspondence has been transcribed from collections in sixty-four manuscript repositories, containing Rossetti's letters to his companions in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt and Stephens; friends such as Boyce and Bell Scott; his early patrons, Ellen Heaton and James Leathart; and his publisher friend, Alexander Macmillan. An additional twenty-two printed sources have also been accessed. Index; extensive annotations.
WILLIAM E. FREDEMAN (1928-1999) was professor of English at the University of British Columbia from 1956-1991. His many books, articles and reviews on the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers include his important Pre-Raphaelitism: A Bibliocritical Study. He died in 1999 with this edition almost completed; LEONARD ROBERTS, art historian and author of Arthur Hughes: His Life and Works, now heads with Betty Fredeman the committee formed to see it through the press.