Extraordinary Aesthetes: Decadents, New Women, and Fin-de-Siècle Culture

“[Extraordinary Aesthetes] is rich in material and interpretation and introduces the reader to aspects of cultural and literary life at the end of the nineteenth century, which will certainly enrich any previous studies and encourage further reading. Bristow’s mission to extend and transform his cited key texts is successfully achieved.” Miriam al Jamil, The Wildean

"This extraordinary collection of essays persuasively demonstrates that the 1890s was and was not the period articulated for us in the twentieth century. It works across disciplines as authors discuss disappearing babies, feminine ennui, the moon, or the ‘improved’ personal books by Max Beerbohm, alongside national politics and artistic media, such as photography or illustrations. Devilishly beautiful and beautifully written, Extraordinary Aesthetes shows us a new vision for an altogether different fin de siècle and its twentieth-century yellow bloom."

Ana Parejo Vadillo, Reader of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Birkbeck, University of London

"The most rewarding and timely achievement of Extraordinary Aesthetes is that it restores the defining role played by women writers in shaping the culture of the 1890s, a turning point in modern literary history. The essays in this volume – several of them beautifully illustrated – are full of unfamiliar stories and archival discoveries that open up new perspectives on the literature of aestheticism, gender, and the visual."

Stefano Evangelista, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Oxford University

"Aesthetes were never ordinary, and this collection is filled with scholarship that demonstrates just how breathtakingly unconventional and creative they could be. So the volume itself is extraordinary. Joseph Bristow has assembled essays that live up to their subjects by successfully crossing disciplinary and other divides, celebrating art that astonishes, and turning criticism into something that is – to paraphrase Wilde’s Gwendolen Fairfax – not a duty to read but a pleasure."

Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities, University of Delaware

"This beautifully edited collection is testimony to the scholarship that continues to flourish on the work of Decadents, as well as women writers and artists at the fin de siècle. Extraordinary Aesthetes shines light on the contribution of lesser-known figures like Mabel Dearmer, Mary Coleridge, and Dora Sigerson and broadens our understanding of persistent Decadent sensibilities in the early twentieth century."

Jane Desmarais, Professor of English, Goldsmiths, University of London