One of my favorite poems is Christina Rossetti's "The Goblin Market" (1859). In it, it describes a mouthwatering assortment of exotic fruits, including obscure fruits that are no longer widely available. I discovered that the names of many fruits have changed since the 1800s, and as a trawled for images to see what some of these fruits looked like, I thought I would represent the oddest and most bizarre fruit varieties. I desired to show the kinds of things a person, once seduced, might find at a Goblin Market. The poem itself is overtly something. It's been speculated that Rossetti was making a statement about the seduction of drugs at that time and "fallen women", though it could easily have been about temptation and desire. The desire for magical places and things of fairyland could represent forbidden freedoms denied women. Or it could simply be the desire for exotic fresh produce (which was not available in great abundance at that time).
Prints of this series are available via Etsy, and alternate versions without the border and wording shown on these Artist's Proofs may be available in the future.
Goblin Market
by Christina Rossetti
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”