One of the most influential and controversial British periodicals of the nineteenth century, the Yellow Book appeared in thirteen volumes over the course of a three-year print run, from 1894 to 1897. As a forerunner of the “little magazines” of the early twentieth century, the Yellow Book can be seen as the definitive periodical of the 1890s, a decade still sometimes referred to as the “yellow nineties”. Indeed, in its own time the Yellow Book became shorthand for the aesthetic and decadent movements of the British fin-de-siècle. Its highly distinctive style inspired numerous imitators and parodists, and it occupies a prominent place not only in literary and publishing history, but also in the genealogy of modernism.
The history of the Yellow Book is intimately connected to many of the myths surrounding the avant-garde artistic and...
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Citation: Mackie, Gregory. "The Yellow Book". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 February 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5772, accessed 09 June 2026.]
