A weirdly engaging study of various (mostly minor, mostly horrible) movements in Victorian aesthetics: Spasmodic poetry, Gothic revival, etc. Vividly captures the cycles of angst and reaction between romanticism and decadence, making modernism seem like a good idea without condescending to what came before. Highly recommended to someone who doesn't want to read Tennyson or Browning themselves but still wonders why someone might read them. ( )