Unlike the 1870 and 1874 states of the project, this version lacks any “Songs” as a component part of the sequence. It also differs from those two previous states in the depth to which it takes its exploration of the experience of Love, which is the work's dominant subject. Both the 1870 and the 1881 states of the work study and pursue the “difficult deeps of love” in a way that is avoided nearly altogether in the 1874 state of the work. The 1874 work is nearly altogether celebratory.

The 1881 version vastly augments the size of the sequence. The additions can be usefully organized in two groups: the sonnets he wrote to and about Mrs. Morris in the summer-autumn of 1871 (which comprise the bulk of the 1874 state of the project); and the sonnets he wrote after 1871, and mostly from 1873 and thereafter. The latter are of two general kinds: brooding, reflective works, on one hand, and on the other programmatic sonnets written particularly for “The House of Life” sequence—works designed for some particular formal and aesthetic purpose within the sequence as a whole (for example, the opening ). In general, the sonnets he composed at Kelmscott in 1871 are placed within the first part of the sequence under the heading “Youth and Change” while the later compositions are relegated to the second part under the heading “Change and Fate”.

One other matter of general import should be noted. The ambiguous character of the work is sharply increased in the 1881 text. This happens largely because DGR gathers into this state of the work sonnets that relate to so many different times and circumstances. The sequence thereby torques individual sonnets into meanings and relations that would not otherwise have been available to them. The effect is particularly notable in the “Change and Fate” section of the sequence because that is where DGR forces together so many sonnets that come from so many diverse original contexts.

The title and shape for this 1881 version of DGR's masterwork came to him late in 1880, as we see in a letter he wrote to Hall Caine on 17 December: “The House of Life is now a Hundred Sonnets—all lyrics being removed. Besides this, I have 45 sonnets extra. As you are willing, I shall use the title I sent you —‘A Sonnet Sequence’” (see Fredeman, Correspondence , 80. 383 ). DGR had suggested to Caine that he title his planned anthology of sonnets A Sonnet Sequence. After DGR repossessed that title, Caine published his collection in 1882 under the title Sonnets of Three Centuries.