Christina Rossetti was born in Charlotte Street (now Hallam Street), London, to Gabriele Rossetti, a poet and a political exile from Vasto, Abruzzo, since 1824 and Frances Polidori, the sister of Lord Byron's friend and physician, John William Polidori. She had two brothers and a sister: Dante Gabriel became an influential artist and poet, and William Michael and Maria both became writers. Christina, the youngest, was a lively child. She dictated her first story to her mother before she had learned to write.