The Rossettis

This is the grave of the poet Christina Rossetti and most of her family, who were apparently just stacked on top of each other.

Missing is Christina's brother, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who had reportedly insisted that he not be buried in Highgate; he is instead buried in Kent, where he died in 1882. His wife, Elizabeth Siddal, who died twenty years earlier after only two years of marriage, is buried with the family though, and that may be one reason he didn't want to be buried there.

Lizzie Siddal was model and muse to several of the Pre-Raphaelites (most famously posing as Ophelia for Millais—taking laudanum for the pneumonia she caught after posing in a bathtub full of cold water for hours may have started the addiction that eventually cost her her life.)

She was a poet and painter in her own right, and though she was probably less talented than her husband, and certainly less accomplished, honestly I find her much more interesting as a person. It will probably not come as a surprise to learn that he treated her badly—he was chronically unfaithful, and the Rossetti family's disapproval of her working class background kept him from marrying her, although they first became engaged ten years before they actually married. By then her health had deteriorated to the point that she had to be carried to the church. She became pregnant, but the child was stillborn. During a subsequent pregnancy she died from an overdose of laudanum, though whether it was an accident or suicide isn't clear.

After her death, Rossetti was so consumed with grief that he refused to let her coffin leave the apartment for six days, and he enclosed the only copy of a manuscript of his poems in the casket, wrapped in her long red hair.

This is where the story takes a macabre turn. By 1869, seven years after her death, Rossetti became convinced he was losing his eyesight, and wanted to focus on his poetry rather than painting. The problem was that the poems he considered the best he'd ever written were buried with Lizzie in Highgate. His business manager, Charles Augustus Howell, arranged for a secret exhumation. The book was retrieved, and Howell reported to Rossetti—who wasn't there—that Lizzie was perfectly preserved, and that her red hair had continued to grow and now filled the coffin. Howell almost certainly made all of that up in an attempt to ease Rossetti's guilt, but Lizzie received some poetic justice—literally. The poems were published, along with newer work, to a scathingly negative critical reception. Rossetti regretted having agreed to the exhumation for the rest of his life (as well he should) and the man who facilitated it for him, Howell, ended up dying with his throat cut in a Chelsea pub.

These are some lines from the last poem Siddal wrote:

Life and night are falling from me,
Death and day are opening on me,
Wherever my footsteps come and go,
Life is a stony way of woe.
Lord have I long to go?

Hallow hearts are ever near me,
Soulless eyes have ceased to cheer me:
Lord, may I come to thee?

Life and youth and summer weather
To my heart no joy can gather.
Lord lift me from life’s stony way!
Loved eyes long close in death watch for me:
Holy death is waiting for me –
Lord, may I come to-day?