This book is about the fiercely contrasting visions of two of the nineteenth century’s greatest utopian writers. A wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study, it emphasizes that space is a key factor in utopian fiction, often a barometer of mankind’s successful relationship with nature, or an indicator of danger. Emerging and critically acclaimed scholars consider the legacy of two great utopian writers, exploring their use of space and time in the creation of sites in which contemporary social concerns are investigated and reordered. A variety of locations is featured, including Morris’s quasi-fourteenth century London, the lush and corrupted island, a routed and massacred English countryside, the high-rises of the future and the vertiginous landscape of another Earth beyond the stars.
Arvustused
This collection of essays highlights and interrogates the differences between Wellss and Morriss respective worldviews, but it also approaches their own interdisciplinary visions through a variety of methodologies. the breadth and variety of approaches in Godfreys collection are commendable. Because methodological scope is so broad, each major section is curated thoughtfully and manageably. the collection surveys with depth and interest the influence of both writers on each other, on their environments, and on scholarship and post-nineteenth-century fiction. (Kameron Sanzo, The British Society for Literature and Science, bsls.ac.uk, July, 2017)
Muu info
"Some outstanding work on utopias and dystopias, on Morris, Wells and others, is collected here: of the books I've read on utopias in recent years, this is one of the very best." (Simon J. James, Durham University, UK)
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1 Introduction: Tomatoes and Cucumbers |
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1 | (32) |
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33 | (8) |
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Part I Time as a Kind of Space |
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41 | (48) |
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3 Imaginary Hindsight: Contemporary History in William Morris and H.G. Wells |
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43 | (14) |
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4 Quivers of Idiosyncrasy: Modern Statistics in A Modern Utopia |
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57 | (18) |
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5 `All Good Earthly Things are in Utopia Also': Familiarity and Irony in the Better Worlds of Morris and Wells |
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75 | (14) |
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Part II Matters Out of Place: Danger and Disruption in Utopia |
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89 | (50) |
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6 Problems in Utopia from the Thames Valley to the Pacific Edge |
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91 | (16) |
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7 Utopia's the Thing: An Analysis of Utopian Programme and Impulse in H.G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau |
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107 | (16) |
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8 `Great Safe Places Down Deep': Subterranean Spaces in the Early Novels of H. G. Wells |
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123 | (16) |
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Part III Distorted Realities, Shattered Perspectives |
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139 | (34) |
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9 The Urban Wasteland in H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds |
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141 | (16) |
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10 An Epistemological Journey: The Uncertainty of Construed Realities in The Time Machine |
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157 | (16) |
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Part IV Unnatural Theologies in the Island |
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173 | (48) |
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11 Dark Artistry in The Island of Doctor Moreau |
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175 | (14) |
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12 Punishment, Purgatory, and Paradise: Hating the Sin and Sometimes the Sinner, in H.G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Invisible Man |
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189 | (20) |
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13 Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island: The Novel as Fable |
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209 | (12) |
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Part V Building the Future |
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221 | (36) |
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14 `Flowers and a Landscape were the Only Attractions Here': The England of Wells and Morris in Aldous Huxley's Interpretation |
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223 | (18) |
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15 Modernist Ideals: The Utopian Designs of William Morris, Peter Behrens and the Social Housing Schemes of Mid-Twentieth-Century Sheffield |
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241 | (16) |
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| Bibliography |
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257 | (18) |
| Index |
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275 | |
Emelyne Godfrey is Publicity Officer of the H.G. Wells Society. She graduated with a PhD from Birkbeck College in 2008 and is author of Femininity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society: From Dagger-Fans to Suffragettes (2012) and Masculinity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature (2010), published by Palgrave Macmillan. In 2014 she edited The Convert, the first suffragette novel, originally published in 1907.
