The Josephine Hart Poetry Hour: Goblin Market Tickets and Dates

Classic poetry read aloud

This event will take place in the British Library Knowledge Centre Pigott Theatre. It will be simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform. Tickets may be booked either to attend in person (physical) or to watch on our platform (online) either live or within 48 hours on catch up. Viewing links for the online version will be sent out shortly before the event.

Christina Rossetti’s 'Goblin Market' forms the centrepiece of a programme of great poetry, read by leading actors, to coincide with the Library’s Fantasy: Realms of the Imagination exhibition. 

The evening’s readers are BAFTA-nominated Shirley Henderson (Harry Potter, Happy Valley), BAFTA Award-winner and Oscar Nominee Felicity Jones (Star Wars: Rogue One, Doctor Who, The Theory Of Everything) and SAG-nominated Patrick Kennedy (War Horse, Atonement).

Rossetti was born in 1830 into a family that included her brothers, the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Michael - co-founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - and her sister Maria Franchesca, an acclaimed biographer of Dante . Christina’s extraordinary long poem 'Goblin Market' (1862) is the tale of two sisters and their treacherous encounter with the goblin men. One of the triumphs of Victorian literature it is a surreal, fantastical tale of temptation, that lends itself to a myriad of interpretations, although never further explained by the poet.

Rossetti’s poem will be read alongside some iconic works by John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Both poets died tragically young, but in their brief lives they produced some of the most stirring poetry in the English language — few have articulated the exultant joys of the imagination quite like them. 

Presented by The Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation in partnership with the British Library.

Half price tickets available for British Library Members, students, under 26s and other concession groups.

Doors and Bar open at 18:00.

The Poetry Hour was founded by novelist and poetry anthologist Josephine Hart. Launched as The Gallery Poets in Mayfair in the mid-1980s, it later became The Poetry Hour and won fame for bringing classic ‘great poetry read aloud by great actors’ to a wide audience. The British Library has supported Josephine Hart’s mission from 2004 and continues to do so in her memory on a regular basis.

This event accompanies the British Library exhibition Fantasy: Realms of Imagination (27 October – 25 February) supported by Wayland Games and Unwin Charitable Trust:





If you’re attending in person, please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event.

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