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Walter Pater

Chapter 2: PREFACE
By Arthur Christopher Benson
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History - British

About This Book

The author reconstructs the life, writings, and character of a notable late‑Victorian critic and essayist, tracing family origins, schooling, Oxford years, and professional life in London. Chapters combine chronological biography with close readings of early essays, the philosophical novel Marius the Epicurean, and later critical pieces, supported by correspondence and recollections from friends and relatives. The study highlights aesthetic doctrines, religious inclinations, stylistic traits, and personal habits, linking intellectual development to social milieu and assessing contemporary reception while sketching the subject’s temperament and manner.

PREFACE

In the absence of any official biography of Walter Pater, it has been necessary to collect information as to the events of his life from his relatives and friends. My thanks are due, in the first place, to Miss Pater and Miss Clara Pater, his sisters, who have given me the most kind and courteous assistance throughout; to Dr. Shadwell, Provost of Oriel, Pater’s oldest friend and literary executor, of whose sympathy and interest it is impossible to speak too gratefully; to Dr. Bussell, Vice-Principal of Brasenose, who has communicated to me many important particulars; to Mr. Herbert Warren, President of Magdalene; to Dr. Daniel, Provost of Worcester, and Mrs. Daniel; to Mr. Basil Champneys; to Mr. Humphry Ward, formerly Fellow of Brasenose; to Mr. Douglas Ainslie; to Miss Paget (Vernon Lee), and others who have put their recollections at my disposal; to Mr. Edmund Gosse, who has permitted me to use his published materials; to Mr. Howard Sturgis and Mr. C. Fairfax Murray for careful criticism; to Miss Beatrice Layman, who has given me invaluable help in verification and correction.

The books and articles which I have consulted, and to some of which reference is made in the following pages, are the original editions of Pater’s volumes, of various dates, and the Collected Edition of his works, edited by Dr. Shadwell, 1902–1904 (Macmillan and Co.); Essays from the Guardian, privately printed in 1896, and since published 1901 (Macmillan and Co.); A Short History of Modern English Literature, 1898 (Heinemann); Critical Kit-Kats, 1896 (Heinemann), and an article in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1895 (Smith, Elder, and Co.), by Mr. Edmund Gosse; Walter Pater, by Mr. Ferris Greenslet, in the Contemporary Men of Letter Series, 1904 (Heinemann); an essay, Walter Pater, in Studies in Prose and Verse, by Mr. Arthur Symons, 1904 (J. M. Dent); and an article in the Fortnightly Review, “The Work of Mr. Pater,” by Lionel Johnson, September 1894 (Chapman and Hall).

A. C. B.