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A ‘palimpsest of dimly familiar signatures and arabesques’: Art, Time, and the Artist in Neo-Decadent Fiction
Book chapter

A ‘palimpsest of dimly familiar signatures and arabesques’: Art, Time, and the Artist in Neo-Decadent Fiction

Neo-Victorian Series, Vol.10, pp.139-157
Neo-Victorian Series, BRILL
2026

Abstract

aestheticism Decadence neo-Victorianism postmodernity temporality

In recent years, the publishing house 'Snuggly Books' has launched several novels and anthologies relating to Decadence. In its catalogue one may find Jean Lorrain, Octave Mirbeau, Arthur Machen, and Joris-Karl Huysmans, as well as contemporary works by Quentin S. Crisp and Brendan Connell, two of the contributors to Drowning in Beauty: The Neo-Decadent Anthology (2018), edited by Justin Isis and Daniel Corrick. These writers and editors are at the forefront of Neo-Decadence, Connell and Isis writing manifestos to establish their stances on this cultural phenomenon. What binds the writers of the past to these contemporary authors is an interest in art, aestheticism, and excess. This chapter explores the concept of 'Aesthetic Time' in short stories by Corrick, Crisp, and Connell, and argues that, while no Decadent writer is explicitly mentioned in either text, each story resonates with works by Decadent antecedents, transcending time through the coalescence of strangeness and beauty.

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