Studies and Reviews, 1864-1889 is volume five in the ten-volume
Collected Works of Walter Pater. It brings together, for the first time, Pater's essays, reviews, and articles that were published in the press and not reprinted in their original form in his books. These include several texts that have not been republished since their first appearance. The volume thus offers a richer, more comprehensive overview of Pater's literary journalism, highlighting his management of his career in a rapidly evolving print media landscape, across publications such as the
Westminster Review, the
Academy, the
Fortnightly Review,
Macmillan's Magazine,
The Guardian, and the
Pall Mall Gazette. Most significantly, it reveals his strategies for navigating a hostile environment of conservative and homophobic critics, editors, and publishers who were opposed to the 'art for art's sake' aestheticism that Pater advocated.
The volume demonstrates the extraordinary breadth of Pater's interests. It features lengthy pieces on William Morris, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, European Romanticism, and Giordano Bruno, and shorter pieces on topics ranging from prose style, poetry, art history, theatre history, religious issues, philosophy, English as a university subject, and contemporary French fiction. Also included in the volume are Pater's reviews of works by his friends and contemporaries such as Sidney Colvin, Vernon Lee, J. W. Mackail, Marc-Andr?Raffalovich, George Saintsbury, J. A. Symonds, Arthur Symons, and Mary Ward, revealing his participation in a ubiquitous practice of reciprocal reviews, facilitated by the prevailing trend for anonymity in reviewing.
The volume offers a comprehensive critical introduction, a chronology of Pater's life and contemporary events, extensive explanatory notes, and four appendices.
