
The author recreates the artistic & social milieu of the turbulent period around the end of the 19th century. He provides concise biographical material on its central characters such as Wilde, Symons, Beardsley, Whistler, Dowson, Frank Harris & other less well-known people such as Count Stenbock & John Gray. Clayton surveys the arts produced, the favourite dining places, the public reaction & also the decadent life of London outside this artistic arena at a time, before the cataclysm of the Great War, when Victorian values were crumbling.