Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, author of the classic treatise on the subject organized this volume, coined the phrase "The rope of dandyism" to refer -through a musical analogy-a universality of "last feeling in the hierarchy of feelings of our spirit "vanity. That trait of human nature "of all countries and of all times", crisper be expressed only at certain times and certain places. Like a rope that could be isolated from "among the thirty-six thousand [...] that make up this diabolical instrument, so complex, and sometimes so decomposed"; When pressed, it resonates and "has its best echo" in Regency England (1811-1820).

This anthology brings together English authors from different eras: William Hazlitt, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Walter Thornbury, Virginia Woolf and Max Beerbohm. In his essays, stories and reviews, each of them is able to give voice to the nuances and sounds of this unusual string: portray the most representative figures of dandyism, they explore the uniqueness of their experience and describe the historical context that gave place so unusual phenomenon.