The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, C. 1880-1900

The fin-de-siecle period -- roughly the years 1880 to 1900 -- was characterized by great cultural and political ambivalence, an anxiety for things lost, and a longing for the new. It also included an outpouring of intellectual responses to the conflicting times from such eminent writers as T. H. Huxley, Emma Goldman, William games, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde. In this important anthology, Ledger and Luckhurst make available to students, scholars, and general readers a Large body of non-literary texts which richly configure the variegated cultural history of the fin-de-siecle years. Each section begins with an Introduction and closes with Editorial Notes that carefully situate individual texts within a wider cultural landscape.