The English Literary Decadence: An Anthology

The English Literary Decadence provides a comprehensive anthology of the English Decadent poetry and prose from the early 1890's, while also redefining Decadence and broadening its boundaries. Christopher S. Nassaar includes Pater's Renaissance, the work that sparked the Decadent movement, in its entirety. This is the first time that Pater's seminal work has been published with the literature it inspired. He provides a generous sampling of the period with selections from John Barlas, Max Beerbohm, Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, and others. This compilation also includes Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a work responding to, and ultimately indicting, the ideas of the Decadent Movement. Nassaar places this important movement in the context of Victorian Literature, while providing an excellent resource for comparing the literature of this movement with that of others, as well as with the work of those influenced by Decadence.