The 'Nineties: A Good but Limited View

46. Hone, Joseph. The Life of George Moore. NY: Macmlllan, I963. Fp. 67, 120, 367. Quotes from 1933 Revue de Paris article (qv) and mentions Moore's annual visits to Mary in Paris. Grosskurth, Phyllis. John Addlngton Symonds a Biography. Lond: Longmans. 1964. Pp. 222-24J 230. 232, 24~2. 253. 263. 303; portrait on p. 262. Concerned with association with Symonds and letters he wrote to Miss R; suggests that he was "more than slightly enamoured" orf her. Describes her as a fair, feminine, clinging woman. [Gives date of meeting as 1880, although Janet Symonds Vaughan mentions visit of Miss R In I876.] Gunn, Peter. Vernon Lee, Violet Paget, I856-I935. Lond, NY, Toronto: OUP, 1964. Passim, Pp. 17-213. Portrait of Mary, p. 164. Concerned entirely with miss R's association with Vernon Lee from 1880 to I887, when It was broken by Miss R's plans to marry James Darmesteter. [Factually Inaccurate about date of Mme. D's death, P. 76] REVIEW THE 'NINETIES: A GOOD BUT LIMITED VIEW Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890's, ed. Karl Beckson. NY: Vintage Books (Random House), 19o"c". $2.45. This collection Is the latest of an increasing number of such anthologies to appear In recent years. Earlier volumes of this kind often provided a useful melange of material , although selections reflected personal tastes, tended to be strong In poetry at the expense of the short story and of criticism, and seldom provided bibliographical and biographical material which has become more necessary as we move further away from the period In time. Beckson's volume provides a good introduction which recognizes that the literature of the 'nineties is more diverse than the title suggests. Beckson also provides useful notes and some biographical and bibliographical Information. The volume, however, has some of the same shortcomings In its contents as other collections of this type have had. While it Includes poets not often reprinted (e. g. John Barias, Olive Custance, John Gray, Theodore Wratlslaw) and represents each with six or more poems. It does not Include characteristic short stories by, say, Glsslng, Ella D'Arcy, "George Egerton," Hubert Crackanthorpe, and Dowson, which would provide a more balanced view of even so limited a period as the 'nineties decade. These authors might better have been given the space which, in an appendix, Beckson gives to selections from Pater, Huysmans, Hlchens, and Mostyn Flggott. Although better than most collections of this kind, Beckson's volume still perpetuates the conventional, limited view of the yellowishness of the 'nineties. Purdue University --H. E. Gerber ...