ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Christina Rossetti's contributions to The Germ, investigating the extent to which she was involved in editing the periodical and contributed to its artistic goals. It explores how her image as a tortured woman genius was constructed through her poetry and mediated through her brothers' editorial activities. The chapter also explores how conflicts between Rossetti's desire for authorial notoriety and her fear of self-display inform her fiction of the 1850s, especially Maude and Corrispondenza Famigliare. It investigates the legacy of Rossetti's early conflicts over name and fame, demonstrating how these dilemmas influenced her decision to pursue signed publication in Alexander Macmillan's Magazine in the 1860s. Though many contemporary critics claimed to disapprove of posthumous biography, they still relished the details provided by William Michael Rossetti's biographical introductions. By the end of the century, then, George Eliot and Rossetti represent two complementary but distinct models of sage writing—the pseudonymous, cultured woman writer and the named, invisible woman writer.
