author
Bernard Muddiman
Best known for a lively early-20th-century study of the writers and artists of the 1890s, this little-known critic wrote with real affection for the cultural energy of the fin de siècle. His work offers a compact, readable doorway into the world of Wilde, Beardsley, and their contemporaries.
1 Audiobook
The Men of the Nineties
by Bernard Muddiman
About the author
Bernard Muddiman is a fairly obscure literary commentator whose surviving reputation rests mainly on The Men of the Nineties, first published in London in 1920 and later issued in New York in 1921. The book looks back on the artistic and literary ferment of the 1890s, especially in England, and has remained accessible through archives and Project Gutenberg.
From the text and catalog records that are easy to verify today, he appears less as a novelist than as a critic or essayist interested in late-Victorian and fin-de-siècle culture. His writing focuses on the personalities, style, and atmosphere of the period, making him useful to modern readers who want a contemporary-adjacent view of that scene without wading through academic criticism.
Very little firmly confirmed biographical information about his life seems to be readily available in major public sources, so it is safest to let the work speak for him. Even so, The Men of the Nineties suggests a writer deeply engaged with the literature and art of his chosen era, and still worth reading for its period flavor alone.