What does it mean to focus on the decade as a unit of literary history? Emerging from the shadows of iconic Victorian authors such as Eliot and Tennyson, the 1880s is a decade that has been too readily overlooked in the rush to embrace end-of-century decadence and aestheticism. The essays address a wide variety of authors, topics and genres, offering incisive readings of the diverse forces at work in the shaping of the literary 1880s.