The stereotype of 1890s decadence was perhaps best expressed in the introduction to The Letters of Ernest Dowson (1967) which described the movement thus:

… idle, penurious, drunken, promiscuous, living with its head in a cloud of artistic ambition but doing little towards its achievement, tempted towards drugs and perversion, often addicted to them, producing exquisitely fashioned small works, but doomed, after material failure, to an early death.¹

The editors responsible for that definition did concede it was a little too familiar, perhaps being perpetuated by survivors of the period, such as Arthur Symons and Frank Harris, who were eager to convince others of their own wicked youth.

But whatever the prescription may be, there is no denying that the American poet William Theodore Peters had all the symptoms, and more besides, suggesting that he might be the ultimate 1890s decadent.

Consider the case history of his credentials:

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