Arthur Symons

Arthur Symons, born in Wales, was a poet, critic, editor, and an important interpreter of European symbolism for English readers. The Art of Aubrey Beardsley combines Symons's personal recollection of the illustrator with a critical account of Beardsley's rapidly changing visual style. Figures of Several Centuries gathers essays on writers including John Donne, Emily Brontë, Edgar Allan Poe, Gustave Flaubert, Stéphane Mallarmé, Charles Baudelaire, and Walter Pater. Symons edited The Savoy, where literature and illustration met in a deliberately modern periodical. These two titles display complementary parts of his critical practice: one focuses closely on an artist he knew and worked with, while the other moves across several eras of literary history. Project Gutenberg and the University of Pennsylvania's Online Books Page preserve bibliographic records linking both works directly to Symons.