William Rossetti: A Letter to Walt Whitman

“…and in America you will be confessed their inspirer.”

William Michael Rossetti a Photograph by Julia Magaret Cameron, 1865. Image: V & A

William Michael Rossetti was a year younger than his more famous artist brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti (William was born 1829), and was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848, and the author of the Brotherhood’s declaration of intent: