Introduction
Part I: A Definition of Nothing
Part II: Nihilism in the Nineteenth Century
Part III: The Artistic Counterforce and the Problem of Modernity
Chapter I: Vera, or the Nihilists: The first Wildean Superman
Chapter II: Not for Children: The Development of Nihilism in the Fairy Tales
of Oscar Wilde
Chapter III: A poisonous book: Nihilism as Sickness and Art as the Cure in
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Chapter IV: No law for anybody: Nihilism as Anarchy in The Soul of Man
and the Social Comedies
Chapter V: The most supreme of individualists: Christ and the Conquest of
Nihilism in De Profundis
Conclusion: French by Sympathy: Gide and Proust as the Aesthetic Heirs of Wilde
Biography
Colin Cavendish-Jones’ principal research interests are European nihilism; the Victorian religious unsettlement; the Romantic, Aesthetic, and Modernist movements; the reception of Classical literature; and the intersection of literature and philosophy, particularly in the nineteenth century. He has written on a variety of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers, including Pater, Wilde, Trollope, Hardy, Chesterton, and Proust, as well as on the reception of Shakespeare in the nineteenth century. Dr. Cavendish-Jones studied Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford, and subsequently practised as an international lawyer in London, Dubai, and the U.S.A. After working as a teacher, lecturer, journalist, and theatre director in numerous countries throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, he returned to academia and completed a Ph.D. in Victorian literature at the University of St. Andrews, focusing on the Aesthetic movement. He is currently a professor in the Department of English at Xiamen University Malaysia.
