Correspondence is vol. ix in the ten-volume Collected Works of Walter Pater. Among Victorian writers, Pater (1839–1894) challenged academic and religious orthodoxies, defended 'the love of art for own sake', developed a new genre of prose fiction (the 'imaginary portrait'), set new standards for intermedial and cross-disciplinary criticism, and made 'style' the watchword for creativity and life.

For the first time, all the known correspondence of Walter Pater has been assembled and fully annotated, including letters exchanged with his main publisher, the Macmillans, for more than two decades. Pertinent letters written after his death by his sisters Clara and Hester Pater are also included. The Correspondence provides a richer, much more complete overview of Pater's academic, professional, and personal lives and demonstrates how vigorously he participated in some of the most important literary and cultural networks of the Victorian era.

Robert Seiler's profile page

Robert M. Seiler, Associate Professor Emeritus in the department of Communication, Media, and Film at the University of Calgary, earned his PhD in Victorian Studies at the University of Liverpool, where he was William Noble Fellow. His research and teaching interests have ranged widely, including controversial non-fiction, Victorian expository prose, media and cultural studies, communications methodology, and writing about the fine arts. He has prepared four books on Walter Pater, including The Book Beautiful: Walter Pater and the House of Macmillan (1999); with Graham Watson, he edited Text in Context: Contributions to Ethnomethodology (1991); and with his wife, Tamara P. Seiler, he wrote Reel Time: Movie Exhibition and Movie Audiences in Prairie Canada (2013).