Commonplace, and Other Short Stories

Those who have known Miss Rossetti's handiwork from the time when, under the pseudonym of Ellen Alleyn, she produced her masterly paraphrase of Ecclesiastes and her exquisite sad lyric Dreamland, up to these later years of poetic labour productive of such results as the dirge in the Prince's Progress, would pronounce Commonplace a title most undescriptive of anything that lady could possibly produce in verse or prose; and while Commonplace is a very capital title for the chief story in this volume, the book is just as far from commonplace as the author's accustomed audience would anticipate. We shall not attempt to assign to this work among novellettes the same standing that Miss Rossetti's songs and sonnets take among sonnets and songs, because Miss Rossetti is simply the poet of female poets who has reached in England the highest point of executive merit: while we could name many women who have written novelettes superior to Commonplace as well in execution as in conception.