Arthur O'Shaughnessy's career as a natural historian in the British Museum, and his consequent preoccupation with the role of work in his life, provides the context with which to reexamine his contributions to Victorian poetry. O'Shaughnessy's engagement with aestheticism, socialism, and Darwinian theory can be traced to his career as a Junior Assistant at the British Museum, and his perception of the burden of having to earn a living outside of art. Making use of extensive archival research, Jordan Kistler demonstrates that far from being merely a minor poet, O'Shaughnessy was at the forefront of later Victorian avant-garde poetry. Her analyses of published and unpublished writings, including correspondence, poetic manuscripts, and scientific notebooks, demonstrate O'Shaughnessy's importance to the cultural milieu of the 1870s, particularly his contributions to English aestheticism, his role in the importation of decadence from France, and his unique position within contemporary debates on science and literature.

Here, for the first time, is a panoramic overview of the most resonant work of the Pre-Raphaelite era in one handy volume. Combining well-known works with previously neglected materials, this ambitious anthology includes writing and art by such figures as the Rossettis, William Morris, John Ruskin, George Meredith, and Algernon Charles Swinburne. Organized chronologically, the book enables the reader to trace the most prominient artists and writers within each decade, revealing how their influence alternately increased and waned over time and further how their work was received by Victorian critics, by turn friendly, satirical and hostile. Carolyn Hares-Stryker's introduction addresses the principles and origins of the movement, describing the social and political evants that shaped the Pre-Raphaelites and the themes to which they returned again and again: social reform, religion and its role in contemporary life, the allure of the past, and the fragility of utopia.