The Edwardian Sense Art, Design, and Performance in Britain, 1901-1910 Morna O'Neill, Michael Hatt

Although numerous studies have explored the Edwardian period (1901-1910) as one of political and social change, this innovative book is the first to explore how art, design, and performance not only registered those changes but helped to precipitate them. While acknowledging familiar divisions between the highbrow world of aesthetic theory and the popular delights of the music hall, or between the neo-Baroque magnificence of central London and the slums of the East End, "The Edwardian Sense" also discusses the middlebrow culture that characterizes the anonymous edge of the city. Essays are divided into three sections under the broad headings of spectacle, setting, and place, which reflect the book's focus on the visual, spatial, and geographic perspectives of the Edwardians themselves.

Morna O'Neill is the Mellon Assistant Professor of nineteenth-century European Art in the History of Art Department at Vanderbilt University. Michael Hatt is Professor of History of Art at the University of Warwick.

"A handsome volume."—Frank Beck, Elgar Society Journal 

"The Edwardian Sense makes an important contribution to a relatively misunderstood period of art an cultural history…The authors manage to tell a story that is at once a close analysis of visual form and style, as well as a deeply contextual look into a dynamic and influential period in the history of Britain and the world." – Ryan Link, Reviews in History