Overview

Bringing together leading scholars from the fields of Dickens studies and decadence studies, this collection considers the ways in which Dickens's work can be placed into dialogue with various ideas of decadence. It includes chapters dealing with Dickens's treatment of the decadence he saw manifested in mid-Victorian society; his treatment of the themes of decadence and decay in his work, including anticipations of, and unconscious sympathies towards positions which came to define fin-de-siecle Decadence; and the ways in which Decadent writers from the 1880s1920s responded to Dickens. This book therefore broadens our understanding of the work and the significance of Dickens as a pre-eminent Victorian novelist and also deepens our understanding of the contours of fin-de-siecle Decadence.

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9781399527026

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Reviews

Here a high-end collection of scholars addresses the great novelist's condemnation of the decadence of Victorian Britain, the decadence of his own prose and his appropriation by the Decadent writers of the Fin de Siècle, one of the world's most stimulating literary periods. Rich food for thought, including examinations of realism, sincerity, cruelty, modernism, magic and even dining.--Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter

Author Information

Giles Whiteley is Professor of English Literature at Stockholm University. He has published widely on the literature of the long nineteenth-century, with a particular focus on aestheticism and decadence. He is the author of four monographs including, most recently, The Aesthetics of Space in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, 1843–1907 (2020). Other recent publications include the three-volume edition Literature and Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century Culture (2024). He is currently editing Walter Pater’s historical novel Marius the Epicurean. Jonathan Foster is a PhD candidate at Stockholm University whose research explores the relationship between literature and public administration, focusing on representations of state bureaucracy in British fiction during the long nineteenth century. He has published articles on this topic in Dickens Quarterly and Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik. He has also co-edited special issues of The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies and Administory: Journal for the History of Public Administration.

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