Olivia Rossetti Agresti - Anarchism

Anarchism

Olivia Rossetti Agresti was born in London to William Michael Rossetti, one of the seven founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the editor of its literary magazine The Germ. A granddaughter of Gabriele Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown, she was hence a niece of Maria Francesca Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Rossetti, as well as a first cousin of Ford Madox Ford.

While still in their girlhood, Olivia and her sister, the future Helen Rossetti Angeli (1879-1969), began publishing an anarchist journal, The Torch, in the basement of their family home. Despite their youth, this effort became the nucleus of a prominent anarchist salon which included Peter Kropotkin and Sergei Kravchinski, and their publishing coups included the pamphlet Why I Am an Anarchist by George Bernard Shaw. Years later, using the pseudonym "Isabel Meredith", Olivia and Helen published A Girl Among the Anarchists, a somewhat fictionalized memoir of their days as precocious child revolutionaries. These adventures were also chronicled by their cousin Ford Madox Ford in his 1931 memoir Return to Yesterday.

A more permanent consequence of this political activity was Olivia's marriage in 1897 to the Italian anarchist and journalist Antonio Agresti (1866-1926), which led to her emigration from England to Italy. Olivia was to remain there for the rest of her life and she eventually became an Italian citizen. During her first years in Italy she continued with literary activities related to her political activism, including a biography of the Italian painter and revolutionary Giovanni Costa.