
Hastings’ PreRaphaelite poet: Christina Rossetti (1830-94)
Christina Rossetti, the renowned Victorian writer, had strong connexions with Hastings. Maureen Connett explains the enduring appeal of a mysterious figure.
Christina Rossetti, the renowned Victorian writer, had strong connexions with Hastings. Maureen Connett explains the enduring appeal of a mysterious figure.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood liked Victorian Hastings and the area. Maureen Connett discusses their star couple, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his muse Lizzie Siddall, who got married in the Old Town.
During the long wait for a bus, local artist and writer, Maureen Connett, has been pondering what can be done to cheer up the town centre, in particular the bus stops at Queens Road. She would have liked to share her art portraying local places in Hastings on the empty spaces at the bus shelters, but it looks like the Pandemic may have put paid to a ‘laudable initiative’. We can take another look at Maureen’s art here.
In the autumn of 1852, Edward Lear, while painting a fig tree in the overgrown garden of the Hastings MP Frederick North, made a lifelong friendship with the MP’s daughters, which affects lives to this day. Artist and writer Maureen Connett tells us more about the lesser known artistic and musical talents of the writer, Edward Lear, best known for his limericks and nonsense poetry.
The Coronavirus Pandemic was a test which I failed – and I succeeded. I failed: I drank too much wine, did not clean my flat from top to bottom, did not catch up with my reading, did not practise yoga, nor sort out surplus clothing for the charity shops. Artist and writer Maureen Connett tells us what she did do in lockdown.