English Fiction and the Evolution of Language, 1850–1914

English Fiction and the Evolution of Language, 1850–1914
Author: Will Abberley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2015-05-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1316300870

Victorian science changed language from a tool into a natural phenomenon, evolving independently of its speakers. Will Abberley explores how science and fiction interacted in imagining different stories of language evolution. Popular narratives of language progress clashed with others of decay and degeneration. Furthermore, the blurring of language evolution with biological evolution encouraged Victorians to re-imagine language as a mixture of social convention and primordial instinct. Abberley argues that fiction by authors such as Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hardy and H. G. Wells not only reflected these intellectual currents, but also helped to shape them. Genres from utopia to historical romance supplied narrative models for generating thought experiments in the possible pasts and futures of language. Equally, fiction that explored the instinctive roots of language intervened in debates about language standardisation and scientific objectivity. These textual readings offer new perspectives on twenty-first-century discussions about language evolution and the language of science.

Literature, Technology and Magical Thinking, 1880–1920

Literature, Technology and Magical Thinking, 1880–1920
Author: Pamela Thurschwell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2001-07-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139428853

In this 2001 book Pamela Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siècle. Thurschwell argues that technologies began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on: they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Talking to the dead and talking on the phone both held out the promise of previously unimaginable contact between people: both seemed to involve 'magical thinking'. Thurschwell looks at the ways in which psychical research, the scientific study of the occult, is reflected in the writings of such authors as Henry James, George du Maurier and Oscar Wilde, and in the foundations of psychoanalysis. This study offers provocative interpretations of fin-de-siècle literary and scientific culture in relation to psychoanalysis, queer theory and cultural history.

Serials to Graphic Novels

Serials to Graphic Novels
Author: Catherine J. Golden
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2018-10-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0813063736

The Victorian illustrated book came into being, flourished, and evolved during the long nineteenth century. While existing scholarship on Victorian illustrators largely centers on the realist artists of the "Sixties," this volume examines the entire lifetime of the Victorian illustrated book. Catherine Golden offers a new framework for viewing the arc of this vibrant genre, arguing that it arose from and continually built on the creative vision of the caricature-style illustrators of the 1830s. She surveys the fluidity of illustration styles across serial installments, British and American periodicals, adult and children’s literature, and--more recently--graphic novels. Serials to Graphic Novels examines widely recognized illustrated texts, such as The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Rabbit, and Trilby. Golden explores factors that contributed to the early popularity of the illustrated book—the growth of commodity culture, a rise in literacy, new printing technologies—and that ultimately created a mass market for illustrated fiction. Golden identifies present-day visual adaptations of the works of Austen, Dickens, and Trollope as well as original Neo-Victorian graphic novels like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Victorian-themed novels like Batman: Noël as the heirs to the Victorian illustrated book. With these adaptations and additions, the Victorian canon has been refashioned and repurposed visually for new generations of readers.

Literary Research and the Victorian and Edwardian Ages, 1830-1910

Literary Research and the Victorian and Edwardian Ages, 1830-1910
Author: Melissa S. Van Vuuren
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2010-11-19
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 0810877279

This volume discusses traditional and new resources for researching British literature of the Victorian and Edwardian ages and the ways in which those resources can be used in conjunction with one another.

The Cambridge History of the English Short Story

The Cambridge History of the English Short Story
Author: Dominic Head
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1082
Release: 2016-11-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1316739147

The Cambridge History of the English Short Story is the first comprehensive volume to capture the literary history of the English short story. Charting the origins and generic evolution of the English short story to the present day, and written by international experts in the field, this book covers numerous transnational and historical connections between writers, modes and forms of transmission. Suitable for English literature students and scholars of the English short story generally, it will become a standard work of reference in its field.

Exoticizing the Past in Contemporary Neo-Historical Fiction

Exoticizing the Past in Contemporary Neo-Historical Fiction
Author: E. Rousselot
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2014-11-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137375205

This collection of essays is dedicated to examining the recent literary phenomenon of the 'neo-historical' novel, a sub-genre of contemporary historical fiction which critically re-imagines specific periods of history.

Companion to Victorian Popular Fiction

Companion to Victorian Popular Fiction
Author: Kevin A. Morrison
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2018-10-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1476669031

This companion to Victorian popular fiction includes more than 300 cross-referenced entries on works written for the British mass market. Biographical sketches cover the writers and their publishers, the topics that concerned them and the genres they helped to establish or refine. Entries introduce readers to long-overlooked authors who were widely read in their time, with suggestions for further reading and emerging resources for the study of popular fiction.