What fin de siecle Texts to Read?

[Patrick Bell]

Hello,
Any late 19th century readers who could recommend some good avenues for reading would be greatly appreciated! I've read a couple of the more famous British texts from the late 19th century era: Walter Pater, H.G. Wells, Hardy, Wilde, Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde, Bram Stoker's Dracula, etc.

However I wrote an essay on the aestheticism in Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray and my research led me to become really interested in the fin de siecle period, in France and Britain in particular. I've heard about symboilism, decadence, aestheticism, and so on and I really would like some suggestions on some good texts that could illuminate the sort of literary climate of the time. Also, some other texts that could help me understand what some call the 'crisis' of the period would be good, such as the philosophy of Schopenhauer or Nietzsche if they were relevant to the time? (I'm not too sure).

Anyway, thanks a lot if you can lend a hand!

[Charles Darnay]

I think the quintessential reading you should do is Huysman's A Rebours (Against Nature). It is the yellow book that Lord Henry gives Dorian at the start of Picture of Dorian Gray

[Calidore]

Fin de siecle: Frozen fish on a stick

[mal4mac]

Try Bryan Magee's biography of Schopenhauer, he considers his impact on many authors in the period you are interested in, including Nietzsche, Hardy, Conrad, Maupassant, ...

[kev67]

New Grub Street by George Gissing is about writers and publishers in the late Victorian age. It's quite cynical. For symbolism, decadence, aestheticism and Schopenhauer influences, Thomas Hardy is your man. I dare say Jude the Obscure is close to what you want, although I haven't read it myself, just watched the video.

[Kyriakos]

Guy de Maupassant

Maybe some Nerval too, although Maupassant is superior in my view (easier to enjoy too, it seems).

[Patrick Bell]

Read A Rebours, some Yellow Book copies, Pater's The Renaissance, Baudelaire, Swinburne and the Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siecle. Loving it! Might post some responses to what I've read soon, but I'm busily applying for university at the moment to read English, which is involving a couple of essays, a personal statement and school-related shenanigans. Fingers crossed for Cambridge! Nervous! :/