The Aesthetes: A sourcebook

By the end of the nineteenth century, the robust virtues of the Victorian age began to be undermined by the first stirrings of the Aesthetic movement, best represented by the writings of Wilde and the paintings of Whistler. In this anthology of the Aesthetes, Ian Small makes available in one volume the major documents of the movement and the principal critical reactions to it. The first part contains the main critical polemic associated with the Aesthetic movement, works by Swinburne, Pater, Whistler and Wilde. The second part is a selection of poetry and fiction representative of the Aesthetes, and the third part reprints some of the move important critical reactions to the movement, from Mallock and W.S. Gilbert to F.H. Myers and Max Beerbohm. This collection of documents provides an indispensable basis for any study of the Aesthetes and resurrects much fascinating material that is otherwise unavailable.