Carolyn Williams is Chair and Professor of English at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She is the author most recently of Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody.

In addition to her superb analysis of the style and thought of Pater's individual writing, demonstrates that Pater was far more philosophically coherent and complex, and of far more interest for contemporary critical thought, than has previously been recognized. Her book is the best critical study on Pater yet written.(Victorian Studies) A convincing account of the unity of Pater's thought and probably the most detailed treatment ever attempted of the intricacies of his prose; a book that is likely to be an essential source for future readings of Pater.(Nineteenth-Century Literature)