Jonty Claypole

But through the 1850s, it's often very hard to see what she's doing.

She has another series of breakdowns, unfortunately.

She's very sick for long periods of time.

And again, it's been endlessly discussed what the nature of this sickness is, if it's psychosomatic, if it's physical, if it's just a mix of everything.

She becomes even more involved in Christchurch, the church.

So she's becoming very fervently evangelical.

She is occasionally publishing poems.

But I think the remarkable thing is that, you know, at that age of 18, you think she's poised for this great success and it's fairly muted the next 10 years.

During this time as well, when people encounter her, you would expect the author of Goblin Market to be this rather vivacious, hilarious personality.

And any time anyone writes about her, she's unbelievably grim and serious.

I mean, nobody has anything nice to say about her.

Actually, Goblin Market isn't her most famous poem.

Her most famous poem is A Christmas Carol.

And if you think of Christmas carols, they tend to be very joyful.

Christmas carols are called things like Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Joy to the World, The First Noel, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

And the one Christina Rossetti gives us is In the Bleak Midwinter.

It's a brilliant Christmas carol.

And I want to lead us out of this half of the episode with a description she does of herself around 1850.

She writes a novella called Maud, which is semi-autobiographical.

Yes, great.