Walter Pater, 'Imaginary Portraits' - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1907322558 ISBN 13: 9781907322556

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2014

Synopsis

Walter Pater is best known for his Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) and for his first novel Marius the Epicurean (1885). His short fiction deserves a much wider audience. This edition includes the four intricate and influential narratives he published as Imaginary Portraits in 1887 together with five of his other portraits, published only in periodical form. Fully annotated and supplemented by valuable contextual materials, this collection, the first critical edition of Pater's shorter fiction, makes accessible these extraordinary and impressive stories. This is the inaugural volume of the 'Jewelled Tortoise', an MHRA series of critical editions of significant aesthetic and decadent texts, launched under the general editorship of Stefano Evangelista and Catherine Maxwell. Lene Ostermark-Johansen is associate professor in the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

About this title

Review

• ‘Long out of print, Imaginary Portraits has finally found a worthy home in print, thanks to what Pater might have characterized as Østermark-Johansen’s ‘minute and scrupulous’ lapidary care.’ — Kit Andrews, Modern Language Review 111.3, 2016, 861-63.
   
• ‘It makes the portraits accessible through the lucid, highly original, and perceptive critical introductions and the useful, often necessary annotations. This is an essential text for students of Pater and Aestheticism.’ — David Riede, Pater Newsletter 65, 2014, 92.
   
• ‘"[Østermark-Johansen] combines an encyclopedic knowledge of Pater's influences and allusions, and an astute understanding of his works and life, with enviable lightness of touch."’ — Kate Hext, Times Literary Supplement 8 August 2014, 11.
   
• ‘The annotations are perhaps the most significant contribution this collection will make, as Pater’s highly allusive prose poses difficulties even to trained scholars – there is nothing close to its combination of comprehensiveness and critical apparatus on the market right now.’ — Matthew Potolsky, Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 24, 2015, 112
   
• ‘this invaluable edition will hopefully bring some hitherto neglected texts of the Pater canon to a wider readership including undergraduates, especially as it comes for a very reasonable price. A definite "must-buy".’ — Bénédicte Coste, Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, 82, 2015.
   
• ‘Lene Østermark-Johansen’s magisterial new edition ... offering incisive critical and historical contexts for the individual texts.’ — James Eli Adams, English Literature in Transition 59, 2016, 105-08
   
• ‘Remarkable value and puts the exorbitant prices charged by some other publishers of textual editions to shame.’ — William Baker, The Year's Work in English Studies 95.1, 2016, 1472

About this edition

• Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1907322558
• ISBN 13: 9781907322556
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Ostermark-Johansen Lene