ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows that Walter Pater published most of his texts in periodicals and he was an influential Victorian essayist in a changing print landscape where new periodicals engaged in signature, and competed for variously educated and socially positioned readers. It argues that Pater thoroughly explored this landscape and became ubiquitous in London periodicals as well as in provincial and American publications through syndication. The book focuses on the perplexing question of Pater's attitude to faith and morality and provides a new reading of Gaston de Latour, a novel with a complex textual history, which needs to be further explored. It ALSO shows that how Pater's reflection on desire - and in particular on same-sex desire - is structured upon Hegelian dialectics of thesis, antithesis, and conclusion.
