The letters in this second volume "expose a woman of powerful intellect, complex emotions, unshakeable convictions, and loving heart." Rossetti, forty-three years old in 1874, is now an established poet with a strong literary reputation among her contemporaries. But, as Harrison points out in his introduction to the volume, "two thirds of her life was over, and its losses were mounting." The marriage of William Michael, the death of her sister, Maria, Dante Gabriel's addiction to chloral and the illness that led to his death in 1882, and the deaths of close personal and family friends overshadow these years. Her own affliction with Graves' disease contributed to her becoming reclusive and a semi-invalid. She nonetheless continued to work and publish.