Arthur Symons was a British magazine editor, critic, and poet. His first volume of verse, Days and Nights (1889), consisted of dramatic monologues. Much of his work reflects a French influence. Plays, Acting and Music A Book Of Theory was published in 1909. Symons hoped to produce a series of books encompassing a theory, or system of aesthetics, for all of the arts. This volume covers primarily the stage and secondarily music. Later books would cover painting, sculpture, architecture, handicraft, dancing, and the various arts connected with the stage. Symons concludes his preface with "Each art has its own laws, its own capacities, its own limits; these it is the business of the critic jealously to distinguish. Yet in the study of art as art, it should be his endeavor to master the universal science of beauty."