Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells The Fin-de-Siècle Literary Scene

by Dryden, Linda

• ISBN13: 9781137500113
• ISBN10: 1137500115
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-05-25
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Joseph Conrad and H.G. Wells: The Fin de Siècle Literary Scene is the first sustained examination of the literary friendship between Conrad and Wells. Drawing upon biographies, letters, archival material and a close analysis of texts, the book traces the relationship between Conrad and Wells at the close of the nineteenth and the dawn of the twentieth centuries. It offers perspectives on both authors from literary figures like Ford Madox Ford and provides a unique analysis of the temperamental and artistic differences that ultimately caused Conrad and Wells to become estranged. At the same time, Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells uses critical insights into the works of both authors to trace the ways in which the authors influenced each other's work. What emerges is a clear picture of the literary scene at the fin-de-siècle and consideration of how the English novel was evolving in the opening years of the twentieth century.

Author Biography

Linda Dryden is Professor of English Literature at Edinburgh Napier University, and Director of the University's Centre for Literature and Writing (CLAW). She is author of two monographs, Joseph Conrad and the Imperial Romance, and The Modern Gothic and Literary Doubles: Stevenson, Wilde and Wells, and co-editor of Stevenson and Conrad: Writers of Transition.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Martians, Sleepers, Time Travellers and Hearts of Darkness
2. Conrad, Wells, Ford and the Ghost of Robert Louis Stevenson
3. Quap, Ivory, and Insect Empires
4. 'The difference between us': Science, Politics and the Human Factor
5. Conrad, Wells, and the Art of the Novel
6. The Shape of War and of Things to Come
Afterword
Bibliography
Index