Professor Jane Desmarais
Staff details

Jane Desmarais is Professor of English and Head of the Department of English and Creative Writing. She is the Director of the Decadence Research Centre, Editor-in-Chief of Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies, and Chair of the British Association of Decadence Studies (BADS).
Academic qualifications
- Ph.D., ‘The Beardsley Industry’, Birkbeck, University of London 1995
- MA, Literature and the Visual Arts, 1840-1940, Reading University 1986
- BA Hons. English, Reading University 1985
Research interests
Jane's research is primarily focused on nineteenth-century literature and visual culture, specifically literary and visual decadence, and Anglo-French cultural relations at the fin de siècle. Her recent publications include Decadence and Literature, co-edited with David Weir (Cambridge UP, 2019), Monsters Under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present (Reaktion, 2018), Arthur Symons: Selected Early Poems, co-edited with Chris Baldick (MHRA, 2016), and Decadence and the Senses, co-edited with Alice Condé (Legenda, 2016). She is co-editor with David Weir of the Oxford Handbook of Decadence (Oxford UP, 2021) and is currently working on an edition of Decadent Plays, 1890-1930, with Adam Alston for Bloomsbury (2023).
She is a core member of both the Decadence and Translation Network and the Aestheticism and Decadence Network, and she is organiser (with Alice Condé and Jessica Gossling) of an annual series of international conferences and events on decadence, the most recent being Aesthetic Time, Decadent Archives in July 2019. She is an Honorary Member of the Italian Oscar Wilde Society and was recently elected to the Academia Europaea.
Jane also publishes in the fields of history and psychoanalysis. She has worked on the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford) and the journal Utilitas (Edinburgh UP). Her work in psychoanalysis focuses on two principal ideas: resistance and complementarity; and her most recent publication in this field is Presence of Mind in Neurophysiological Processes (with Lawrence Goldie).
Publications and research outputs
Book
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2018. Monsters Under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present. London: Reaktion. ISBN 9781780239750
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. A Cultural History of Decadence. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 978-0745626000
Goldie, Lawrence and Desmarais, Jane H.. 2013. Presence of Mind in Neurophysiological Processes. Karnac Books. ISBN 9781855758858
Goldie, Lawrence and Desmarais, Jane H.. 2005. Psychotherapy and the Treatment of Cancer Patients: Bearing Cancer in Mind. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781583918579
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1998. The Beardsley Industry: the Critical Reception in England and France from 1893 to 1914. Basingstoke: Ashgate. ISBN 781840142051
Edited Book
Alston, Adam and Desmarais, Jane H., eds. 2024. Decadent Plays, 1890-1930. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781350171824
Desmarais, Jane H. and Weir, David, eds. 2020. The Oxford Handbook of Decadence. New York and London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190066956
Desmarais, Jane H. and Weir, David, eds. 2019. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108550826
Desmarais, Jane H. and Condé, Alice, eds. 2017. Decadence and the Senses. Oxford: Legenda. ISBN 978-1-78188-481-2
Desmarais, Jane H. and Baldick, Chris, eds. 2017. Arthur Symons: Selected Early Poems, eds. Jane Desmarais and Chris Baldick. Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association. ISBN 9781781880999
Baldick, Chris and Desmarais, Jane H., eds. 2017. Arthur Symons: Selected Early Poems. Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association. ISBN 9781781880999
Desmarais, Jane and Baldick, Chris, eds. 2011. Decadence: An annotated anthology. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0719075513
Desmarais, Jane H. and Butler, Marilyn, eds. 2007. An Essay on Irish Bulls. University College Dublin Press. ISBN 9781904558750
Desmarais, Jane H.; Postle, Martin and Vaughan, Martin, eds. 2006. Model and Supermodel: The Artist’s Model in British Art and Culture. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6662-7
Williams, Gianna; Williams, Paul; Ravenscroft, Kent and Desmarais, Jane H., eds. 2003. The Generosity of Acceptance: Exploring Eating Disorders in Adolescents. London: Karnac. ISBN 9781855752610
Williams, Gianna; Williams, Paul; Ravenscroft, Kent and Desmarais, Jane H., eds. 2003. The Generosity of Acceptance: Exploring Feeding Difficulties in Children. London: Karnac. ISBN 9781855759343
Desmarais, Jane H., ed. 1999. Irish Bulls in The Novels and selected Works of Maria Edgeworth Volume 1. Pickering and Chatto. ISBN 978 1 85196 188 7
Edited Journal
Desmarais, Jane H., ed. 2018. Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies, Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies, 1(1).
Book Section
Desmarais, Jane H. and Weir, David. 2021. Taste: Savoring Decadence. In: Jane Desmarais and David Weir, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Decadence. New York and London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190066956
Condé, Alice. 2021. Contemporary Contexts: Decadence Today and Tomorrow. In: Jane H. Desmarais and David Weir, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Decadence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190066956
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2021. Touch: Unfeeling Decadence. In: Jane Desmarais and David Weir, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Decadence. New York and London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190066956
Desmarais, Jane H. and Weir, David. 2020. Introduction: Decadence, Culture, and Society. In: Jane Desmarais and David Weir, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Decadence. New York and London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190066956
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2019. 'Symons, Beardsley, and the "Minims and Crotchets" of Art'. In: Stefano Evangelista and Elisa Bizzotto, eds. Arthur Symons: Poet, Critic, Vagabond. 44 Oxford: Legenda, pp. 30-41. ISBN 9781781884973
Baldick, Chris. 2019. Modern Prophetic Poetry and the Decadence of Empires: From Kipling to Auden. In: Jane H. Desmarais and David Weir, eds. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 347-361. ISBN 9781108550826
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2019. Decadence and the Critique of Modernity. In: Jane H. Desmarais and David Weir, eds. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 98-114. ISBN 9781108550826
Hurst, Isobel. 2019. Nineteenth-Century Literary and Artistic Responses to Roman Decadence. In: Jane H. Desmarais and David Weir, eds. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 47-65. ISBN 9781108426244
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2019. 'The quintessence of quintessence': Music and Musicality in Ernest Dowson’s Verse. In: Alice Condé and Jessica Gossling, eds. In Cynara's Shadow: Collected Essays on Ernest Dowson. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 245-272. ISBN 9781787076259
Condé, Alice. 2019. Decadence and Popular Culture. In: Jane H. Desmarais and David Weir, eds. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 379-399. ISBN 9781108426244
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2018. ‘Prig’s prattling’ at the Fin de Siècle: Haldane MacFall and the Decay of English Art’. In: Bénédicte Coste, ed. Politics and Aestheticism.
Gossling, Jessica. 2017. 'Things worldly and things spiritual': Joris-Karl Huysmans’s A rebours and the house at Fontenay. In: Alice Condé and Jane H. Desmarais, eds. Decadence and the Senses. Oxford: Legenda, pp. 66-82. ISBN 978-1-781884-81-2
Condé, Alice. 2017. Sensory Nullification in the Poetry of Ernest Dowson. In: Jane H. Desmarais and Alice Condé, eds. Decadence and the Senses. Cambridge: Legenda, pp. 200-218. ISBN 9781781884812
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. Without Memory or desire: the model's progress in du Maurier's Trilby. In: Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke, eds. George du Maurier: Illustrator, Critic, Author. Ashgate Publishing Limited; New edition. ISBN 978-1472431592
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. Du Maurier and the Artist’s Model’. In: Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke, eds. George du Maurier: Illustrator, Critic, Author: Beyond Svengali. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 9781472431592
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Perfume Clouds: Olfaction, Memory, and Desire in Arthur Symons’s London Nights (1895). In: Jane Ford; Kim Edward Keates and Patricia Pulham, eds. Economies of Desire at the Victorian Fin de Siècle: Libidinal Lives. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 62-79. ISBN 9781138826342
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2006. 'Model on the Writers' Block'. In: Jane H. Desmarais; Martin Postle and Martin Vaughan, eds. Model and Supermodel: The Artist’s Model in British Art and Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6662-7
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2006. The model on the writers' block: The model in fiction from Balzac to du Maurier. In: Jane H. Desmarais; M. Postle and W. Vaughan, eds. Model and Supermodel: The Artist's Model in British Art and Culture. Manchester University Press, pp. 47-60. ISBN 071906662X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2006. The model on the writers' block: The model in fiction from Balzac to du Maurier. In: Jane H. Desmarais; Martin Postle and Martin Vaughan, eds. Model and supermodel: The artists' model in British art and culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 071906662X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2006. ‘Motherless Child and the Refusal of Maternity’ (‘Enfant sans maman et le refus de la maternité’). In: Moira Inghilleri, ed. Swinging Her Breasts at History: Language, Body and Text in Caribbean Women’s Writing. Mango Publishing, pp. 210-223. ISBN 978-1902294216
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2005. The Model: Susannah Gregory in conversation with Jane Desmarais. In: Jane H. Desmarais; Martin Postle and William Vaughan, eds. Model and Supermodel: The Artist’s Model in British Art and Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 151-161. ISBN 978-0-7190-6662-7
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2004. Charles Baudelaire’. In: Christopher John Murray, ed. Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era 1760–1850 Vol 1. 1 London: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 59-61. ISBN 978-1579583613
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2004. Le Salon de 1846. In: Christopher John Murray, ed. Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era 1760–1850 Vol 2. 2 London: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 985-986. ISBN 978-1579583613
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2004. Joseph Wright’. In: Christopher John Murray, ed. Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era 1760–1850 Vol 2. 2 London: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 1235-1236. ISBN 978-1579583613
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2001. ‘Judge a Book by Its Cover’. In: Warwick Gould, ed. Yeats and the Nineties Yeats Annual No 14: A Special Number. 14 Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 365-371. ISBN 978-0-333-71640-3
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1998. Maria Edgeworth 1768-1849. In: Joanne Shattock, ed. The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature Volume 4. 1800–1900. 4 Cambridge University Press, pp. 901-907. ISBN 9780521391009
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1997. Honoré de Balzac’. In: , ed. The Novel. University of London. ISBN 07187 14342
Article
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2021. Late-Victorian Decadent Song Literature. Victorian Literature and Culture, 49(4), pp. 689-710. ISSN 1060-1503
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2018. Voluptuous Interventionism: An Introductory Note from the Editor-in-Chief. Volupté: interdisciplinary journal of decadence studies, 1(1), i-vi. ISSN 2515-0073
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2017. Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows. Literary Encyclopedia, ISSN 1747-678X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2017. Kenneth Grahame. Literary Encyclopedia, ISSN 1747-678X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. Shedding light on the ‘Pre-Raphaelite stunners’. The Conversation,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Review: Kostas Boyiopoulos. The Decadent Image: The Poetry of Wilde, Symons and Dowson. Review of English Studies, 67(279), pp. 393-394. ISSN 0034-6551
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Matthew Potolsky: The Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2013. 232 pages. arcadia, 50(2), pp. 464-467. ISSN 0003-7982
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Review: Matthew Potolsky, The Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013, pp. 232. ISBN 978-0-8122-4449-6. The Oscholars, ISSN 2045-0753
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Ernest Christopher Dowson. Literary Encyclopaedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2014. Lionel Johnson. The Literary Encyclopedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2014. Lord Alfred Douglas. Literary Encyclopedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2014. John Henry Gray. The Literary Encyclopedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2014. Arthur William Symons. The Literary Encyclopedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2005. Shrinking the Stereotype of Psychoanalysis. Psychotherapy Section Review, 38, pp. 27-36.
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2001. Preferring not to: The Paradox of Passive Resistance in Herman Melville's 'Bartleby'. Journal of the Short Story in English, 36, pp. 25-39. ISSN 0294-0442
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2001. Anorexic and Passive Resistance in Melville’s “Bartleby” (1853): A Literary Case Study’. Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, 18, pp. 82-93. ISSN 1362-6620
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2001. The Paradox of Passive Resistance in Herman Melville's "Bartleby". Journal of the Short Story in English, 36, pp. 25-39.
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1997. The Musical Analogy in Beardsley Criticism 1898-1914. Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, 6, pp. 64-90. ISSN 1060-149X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1990. The Bentham Project. UCL News,
Conference or Workshop Item
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. 'The Musical Aesthetics (‘such as it is’) of Arthur Symons (1865-1945)'. In: Arthur Symons: Writing Across Arts and Cultures. IUAV, Venice, Italy.
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2011. 'Memory and desire in Arthur Symons’ London Nights (1895)'. In: Decadent Poetics. University of Exeter, United Kingdom.
Digital
Gossling, Jessica and Condé, Alice. 2018. Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies.
Performance
Alston, Adam; Desmarais, Jane H. and Meth, Jonathan. 2021. Decadent Plays. In: "Decadent Plays", The Albany, London, United Kingdom, 10 November 2021.
Professional Activity
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2018. Editor-in-Chief of Volupté: interdisciplinary journal of decadence studies.
Further profile content
Featured publications
2021:
The Oxford Handbook of Decadence
Ed. Jane Desmarais and David Weir
2019:
Decadence and Literature (Cambridge Critical Concepts series)
Ed. Jane Desmarais and David Weir
2018:
Monsters Under Glass
A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present
2016:
Arthur Symons, Selected Early Poems
Ed. Jane Desmarais and Chris Baldick
2016:
Decadence and the Senses
Ed. Jane Desmarais and Alice Condé
Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups
Grants and awards
Funding overview:
Jane has received external grant funding from several organisations to support her work including: the AHRC, British Academy, ESSE, MHRA, Paul Mellon Centre of Studies in British Art