The Birth of Liberal Guilt in the English Novel


Book Description

Daniel Born explores the concept of liberal guilt as it first developed in British political and literary culture between the late Romantic period and World War I. Disturbed by the twin spectacle of urban poverty at home and imperialism abroad, major nove




Literature and Nation


Book Description

This is the first book to deal with the culture of Britain and India over the past two hundred years in an integrated way. Previously unavailable texts make this an invaluable resource for all those interested in British and Indian literature.







Nation & Novel


Book Description

Patrick Parrinder traces English prose fiction from its late medieval origins through its stories of rogues and criminals, family rebellions and suffering heroines, to the contemporary novels of immigration. He provides both a comprehensive survey and a new interpretation of the importance of the English novel.




Making Liberalism New


Book Description

"This book maps the rise of a modern liberal culture in the United States from the 1930s to the 1960s. It shows how modern fiction writers responded to central concerns in liberal political thought, such as corporate ownership, reproductive rights, colorblind law, and presidential character"--




Devolving Identities


Book Description

There is no doubt that the political and cultural map of Europe is in the process of being radically redrawn. Alongside the major upheavals in continental Europe, the British Isles has undergone far-reaching constitutional reform. In Devolving Identities, feminist scholars explore their personal negotiations of gender, class, ethnicity and national or regional identity through their readings of two literary and cultural 'texts'. The collection centres on the ontological experience of reading and writing 'as a feminist', and combines the discussion of texts which are inscribed - whether consciously or unconsciously - with the academics' own struggle to reconcile their 'roots' with their current 'situations' or 'identities'. This book's focus on the overlapping of gender and national or regional identity is a direct response to the devolution movements currently active in the British Isles. The contributors are drawn from Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, Northern Ireland and selected regions of England. In its complex engagement of subject and text and its political insistence that we no longer consider key aspects of 'identity' in isolation, this volume presents a truly state-of-the-art investigation of (a) what it means to be 'regionally defined' and (b) how the complexity of our positioning in terms of class, gender and nation impacts upon our practice as literary and cultural critics.




Encyclopedia of the Novel


Book Description

The Encyclopedia of the Novel is the first reference book that focuses on the development of the novel throughout the world. Entries on individual writers assess the place of that writer within the development of the novel form, explaining why and in exactly what ways that writer is importnant. Similarly, an entry on an individual novel discusses the importance of that novel not only form, analyzing the particular innovations that novel has introduced and the ways in which it has influenced the subsequent course of the genre. A wide range of topic entries explore the history, criticism, theory, production, dissemination and reception of the novel. A very important component of the Encyclopedia of the Novel is its long surveys of development of the novel in various regions of the world.




George Gissing


Book Description

Once seen as a relatively marginal figure, George Gissing (1857-1903) persists in sparking interest among new generations of radical critics who continue to be inspired by his work and to develop fresh approaches to it. This essay collection, bringing together British, European, and North American literary critics and cultural historians with diverse specialities and interests, demonstrates the range of contemporary perspectives through which his fiction can be viewed. Offering both closely contextualized historical readings and broader cultural and philosophical assessments, the contributions will engage not only the specialist but those interested in the diverse themes that absorbed Gissing: the cultural and social formation of class and gender, social mobility and its unsettling effects on individual and collective identities, the place of writing in emerging mass culture, and the possibilities and limits of fiction as critical intervention.




Semi-Detached Empire


Book Description

In the first book to consider British suburban literature from the vantage point of imperial and postcolonial studies, Todd Kuchta argues that suburban identity is tied to the empire's rise and fall. Like the semi-detached house, which joins separate dwellings under one roof, suburbia and empire were geographically distinct but imaginatively linked. Yet just as the "semi" conceals two homes behind a single façade, suburbia's apparent uniformity masks its defining oppositions--between country and city, "civilization" and "savagery," master and slave.




H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life


Book Description

An unlikely lothario, one of the most successful writers of his time, a figure at the heart of the age's political and artistic debates—H. G. Wells' life is a great story in its own right When H. G. Wells left school in 1880 at 13 he seemed destined for obscurity—yet he defied expectations, becoming one of the most famous writers in the world. He wrote classic science-fiction tales such as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds; reinvented the Dickensian novel in Kipps and The History of Mr Polly; pioneered postmodernism in experimental fiction; and harangued his contemporaries in polemics which included two bestselling histories of the world. He brought equal energy to his outrageously promiscuous love life—a series of affairs embraced distinguished authors such as Dorothy Richardson and Rebecca West, the gun-toting travel writer Odette Keun, and Russian spy Moura Budberg. Until his death in 1946 Wells had artistic and ideological confrontations with everyone from Henry James to George Orwell, from Churchill to Stalin. He remains a controversial figure, attacked by some as a philistine, sexist, and racist, praised by others as a great writer, a prophet of globalization, and a pioneer of human rights. Setting the record straight, this authoritative biography is the first full-scale account to include material from the long-suppressed skeleton correspondence with his mistresses and illegitimate daughter.