Christina Rossetti, the masterful 19th century poet, was born today in 1830. While far from a radical herself, her written work has inspired feminists for generations.

It’s often the case that radical figures from history get ‘moderated’ by historians and journalists.

Martin Luther King, for example, is often presented to us as a moderate counterpoint to Malcolm X when in fact both men saw themselves as revolutionary.

But history can also work in the opposite way – gifting a radical legacy to profoundly un-radical characters.

Take Christina Rossetti.

A contemporary critic once described the Anglo-Italian writer as no less than “our greatest woman poet… probably in the first twelve masters of English verse.”

Best-known for the collection Goblin Market and other Poems (1862), Rossetti was doubtless a towering figure of 19th century British literature.

But she was no radical.

The not so radical Christina Rossetti and family - click to explore mores stories from our Radical past

The not so radical Rossetti family 

Her father, Gabriele, was an Italian exile, banished to England for his support of revolutionary politics against the aristocrats who ruled contemporary Italy.

Christina’s apple, however, didn’t fall very close to the tree.

She was no malevolent reactionary – among other strongly held positions, Rossetti opposed slavery in the United States as the country careened towards civil war in the 1850s.

But opposing legal slavery was hardly a certificate of political radicalism in mid-19th century Britain (mainstream opinion had turned decisively against slavery with its abolition in the 1830s).

Rossetti was conspicuously silent on questions of social reform – and quite conservative on a range of socio-political questions (not least with her refusal to back women’s suffrage!).

‘Radical’, then, is not quite the right label for Rossetti. She was far from a Mary Wollstonecraft or a Sylvia Pankhurst.

Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas helped lay the groundwork for modern day feminism - click to see our tea towel in tribute.

Rossetti's radical literary legacy 

And yet, Rossetti’s literary legacy has taken a far more revolutionary form than the woman behind it.

For decades, readers of Rossetti’s poetry have been uncovering themes of emancipation and solidarity which are undeniably feminist.

Goblin Market, for example, promotes the value of sisterhood and fires plenty of shots at patriarchal gender relations.

It’s from this poem, in fact, that we’ve taken the quote for our Christina Rossetti tea towel:

“For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather.”

This revolutionary potential in Rossetti’s Victorian era writing explains how such a decisively moderate figure has managed to inspire generations of radicals ever since.

And Christina Rossetti isn’t a one-off.

Browse inspirational quotes from Christina Rossetti and other literary figures

'Remember': the radicals of history 

Less-than-radical characters from across the length and breadth of history have often expressed values and concepts with a fiercely radical potential.

In other cases, profoundly unprogressive figures – like the aristocratic William Wallace, for example – have become revolutionary icons thanks to the way history remembers their actions at a particular point in time.

We’re left with modern day progressives using the words and images of moderate (or even quite conservative!) characters like Christina Rossetti for inspiration.

History is, if nothing else, ironic.

Explore our full collection of holiday gifts inspired by Radical History