More than an index to the nine volumes of letters, this volume is a concise guide to an entire cultural era seen through the lens of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Volume 10 of The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti is the first ever analytical and biographical index to all Rossetti's letters from 1835-82. It gives readers the widest possible contextual access to all names of persons, places, works of art, writings, movements, organizations and activities, both physical and intellectual, mentioned in these letters with their annotations and appendices. But this index, augmenting the partial ones in Vols2 and 5, is far more than a simple listing of names: it also serves as a subject index, providing mini-précis descriptions of the information detailed in the annotated letter texts. Subheadings within entries depend on the complexity of the subject and may include letters to/from (for recipients) and lists of artistic and literary works by Rossetti's correspondents, or predecessors such as Blake, Keats and Coleridge. It is a concise guide to an entire cultural era. Since Rossetti is the lens through which all other entries are filtered, his own entry is divided into multiple subheadings to facilitate easy access. The researcher can quickly locate all references to the sonnet sequence The House of Life, the various versions of the Proserpine picture or the complex relationship of his drug use to Rossetti's life and work.