Fin de Siecle/Fin du Globe: Fears and Fantasies of the late Nineteenth Century.

It is hardly surprising to readers of this journal that the 1890s have become fashionable. A generation ago Ian Fletcher pointed out the importance of a decade that had too readily been labelled a period of failed fictional experimentation, minor poets, and a notorious playwright. His work has been further developed by outstanding scholars, including the editor of these essays, which were given at a conference in 1990. Stokes has drawn together some of the best-known specialists of the period, as well as several critics who use the 1890s as a vantage point from which to discuss the twentieth century. While "fin du globe" dominates, an attention to fantasies of the end of everything also enables the contributors to avoid a rehash of …