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The Women Aesthetes

British Writers, 18701900
General Editor: Jane Spirit Volume Editors: Sue Asbee and Valerie Purton
3 Volume Set: c.1200pp: September 2013 978 1 84893 227 2: 234x156mm: 275/$495

The aesthetic movement dominated the closing decades of the nineteenth century. It was significant for the key role women played in it at a time when there were growing opportunities for them, both artistically and professionally. A reaction to the commercial growth and industrialization of the nineteenth century, the movement favoured beauty over utility. It affected every aspect of the arts, including literature. The material in this collection provides a representative selection of essays, fiction, poetry and drama by female authors. Organized chronologically each volume highlights a particular decade. The third volume only includes writers whose work appeared in The Yellow Book, that benchmark of aestheticism. Each writer is introduced and their critical reception assessed, whilst wider comparison with nineteenth-century literary development is also explored. The publication of these works many for the first time in a scholarly edition will allow further critical study of the genre. The edition will be of interest to scholars of Victorian Literature and Aestheticism, Cultural History, Womens Studies, Pre-Raphaelite Studies and the History of Art.

Frontispiece to The Yellow Book, volume II (July 1894) by Aubrey Beardsley Mary Evans Picture Library

Pushes female-authored works to the forefront of the aesthetic movement Includes works by Edith Nesbit, Ouida, Lucas Malet, Netta Syrett and Vernon Lee Editorial apparatus includes a general introduction, headnotes and endnotes

PUBLISHERS

PICKERING & CHATTO

Contents
Volume 1
These early texts highlight the role of women in the formulation of the aesthetic movement. Ouidas novels emphasize the importance of beauty and art, even above considerations of morality. Links between emergent aestheticism and the literary mainstream are reflected in the poetry of both Meynell and Fane, while Broughtons portrayal of a male aesthete satirises the movements close association with Oxford and Oscar Wilde. Ouida [Marie Louise de la Rame] Folle Farine (1871)* Princess Napraxine (1884)* Alice Meynell [ne Thompson] Preludes (1875) The Colour of Life and Other Essays on Things Seen and Heard (1896) Rhoda and Agnes Garrett Suggestions for House Decorating in Painting, Woodwork and Furniture (1876) Violet Fane [Mary Montgomerie Currie] The Queen of Fairies (A Village Story) and Other Poems (1876)* A Mary F Robinson [Mary Darmester, Mary Duclaux] A Handful of Honeysuckle (1878) Rhoda Broughton Second Thoughts (1880)*

Volume 2
The writing of the 1880s and 1890s saw the aesthetic movement in multiple guises. Cranes focus on art forms a central tenet of aestheticism and Malets emphasis on the visual sits at the heart of her fiction. Wootons short stories examine the female aesthetes interests and temperament and Levys poems explore melancholy as the condition of the modern age. In Equal Love, Bradley and Cooper writing as Michael Field push at the boundaries of aestheticism towards decadence. Lucy Crane Art and the Formation of Taste, Six Lectures by Lucy Crane (1882)* Lucas Malet [Mary St Leger Harrison, ne Kingsley] Mrs Lorimer (A Sketch in Black and White) (1882)* The Wages of Sin, A Novel (1891)* Amy Levy A Minor Poet and Other Verse (1884) Janey Sevilla Campbell [Lady Archibald Campbell, ne Callendar] Rainbow Music or The Philosophy of Harmony in Colour Grouping (1886) Mabel Wotton A Pretty Radical and Other Stories (1890)* Michael Field [Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper] A Question of Memory (1893)* Equal Love, in The Pageant (1896) Florence Farr [Florence Emery] The Dancing Faun (1894)

Editorial Board
Jane Spirit is at the Open University Sue Asbee is at the Open University Valerie Purton is at Anglia Ruskin University

Una Taylor Nets for the Wind (1896)*

Volume 3
All the authors represented here contributed to The Yellow Book. The publication was so influential that the 1890s became known as the yellow nineties. Lee and DArcy write with authority on art and aesthetics, while much of the poetry of MarriottWatsons The Bird-Bride is inspired by works of art. Music and art infuse the work of Custances Opals, whereas A Light Load by Radford resonates with love, loss and despair. The short stories included continue the themes of aestheticism, with Nesbits portrayal of an independent woman with whom the storys narrator falls in love, and Syrett tells the tale of an impoverished artist whose work is compromised by commercialism. Vernon Lee [Violet Paget] Baldwin (1886)* Juvenilia (1887)* Rosamund Marriott-Watson The Bird-Bride: A Volume of Ballads and Sonnets (1889) Ella DArcy [Gilbert H Page] The Smile, in Argosy (1891) In a Cathedral, in Argosy (1892) Personality in Art, in Westminster Review (1893) John Oliver Hobbes [Pearl Craigie] Some Emotions and a Moral (1891) A Sinners Comedy (1894) Dollie Radford A Light Load (1891) Songs and Other Verses (1895) Charlotte Mew Passed, in The Yellow Book (1894)
Book Plate for John Lumsden Propert, Esq, illustration in The Yellow Book, Volume I (April 1894) by Aubrey Beardsley Mary Evans Picture Library

Edith Nesbit Miss Lorrimores Career, in Sylvias Journal (1894) Netta Syrett Fairy Gold, in Temple Bar (1896) Olive Custance Opals (1897)

*text is excerpted

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