Goblins

Thirty years before the Kelmscott Press, the author Christina Rossetti had published a series of poems that borrowed heavily from the medievalist fantasy and were illustrated by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti. One of them, Goblin Market, can be categorized as one of the first attempts at fantasy storytelling as it features imaginary creatures, the goblins, which confront two young sisters. Like The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, published three years later, Goblin Market is today interpreted as a critique of Victorian mores, showing from the outset that fantasy was a way of talking about contemporary political and social realities by subversion of the magical.