Introduction

As early as 12 November 1870 Punch was pointing out that the century was getting old, that it had already run the biblical three score years and ten. A pervasive sense of ending was apparent in society by the 1880s, not only in England but also in Europe. By 1890 the idea of 'fin de siècle' was sufficiently commonplace for it to become the title of a French play. When performed in the same year in London, the play publicized the phrase with such success that Punch was eventually to complain (29 August 1891) of 'that pest-term, and its fellow, "modernity"'. ¹ The popularity of these expressions helped to exaggerate the mood which they were describing, encouraging a straining after pessimism on the one hand and after novelty on the other:

'Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.'

'Fin de siècle,' murmured Lord Henry.

'Fin du globe,' answered his hostess.

So ran the conversation in Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray (1891).