The modern gothic and literary doubles : Stevenson, Wilde, and Wells / Linda Dryden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dryden, Linda, 1954-

Contributor:

Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894--Criticism and interpretation.

Stevenson, Robert Louis.

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900--Criticism and interpretation.

Wilde, Oscar.

Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946--Criticism and interpretation.

Wells, H. G.

Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946.

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894.

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Gothic revival (Literature)--Great Britain.

Gothic revival (Literature).

Criticism and interpretation.

Great Britain.

Doubles in literature.

Physical Description:

xiii, 220 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Summary:

The Modern Gothic and Literary Doubles offers refreshing new analyses of the fictions of Gothic duality of Stevenson, Wilde and Wells. Establishing that a modern Gothic literary mode relocates the traditional rural Gothic of earlier writers to the late nineteenth-century metropolis, this volume examines how narratives of the period present London as the location of Gothic encounters and transformations. An understanding of London's cultural history in the nineteenth century helps to explain why the metropolis was such a fertile topic for the literary imagination to work upon, and this volume offers a comprehensive overview of the events and changes in the metropolitan landscape that informed modern Gothic fictions. The book demonstrates how narratives like Jekyll and Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Time Machine and ar of the Worlds were deeply influenced by late nineteenth-century perceptions of London, and are thus symptomatic of a modern, metropolitan Gothic.

Contents:

1 Introduction: the Literary Mood of the Fin de Siecle 1

Hooligan voices: naturalism and the 'new' realists 4

Degeneracy and the fin de siecle 8

A godless universe 11

Utopian solutions 13

The modern Gothic and literary doubles 15

2 The Modern Gothic 19

The rise of the romance 20

The Gothic sensibility 24

The Gothic experience of the metropolis 31

The Gothic and the literature of duality 38

Gothicized spaces: the London labyrinth 43

3 The City: London, Real and Imagined 45

The Ripper murders and 'The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon' 46

The real London: social conditions 52

The city, the flaneur and the crowd 57

Women and the metropolis 61

The physical and social geography of the metropolis 66

The city of the imagination 68

4 'City of Dreadful Night': Stevenson's Gothic London 74

Immorality and insanity: atavism and the criminal 76

Metropolitan and imperial anxiety 81

Hyde-ing in the city 86

Sex, crime and the city 96

The spatial dimensions of duality 102

Stevenson, Machen and the modern Gothic 108

5 Oscar Wilde: Gothic Ironies and Terrible Dualities 110

Wilde, social satire and the Gothic 110

Decadence and the Gothic: Dorian Gray 114

Scandals and serializations 116

Morality and sexuality: Dorian Gray and Jekyll and Hyde 118

Sibyl and Dorian: when two worlds meet 124

Crime and conscience: Dorian Gray's portrait 131

Art, murder and alchemy: Gothic agendas 135

Reputation, death and the city 138

Conclusion: crime and consequence 145

6 'The Coming Terror': Wells's Outcast London and the Modern Gothic 147

Victorian visions of the future 149

Politics and evolution 152

Future London and the modern Gothic 158

Gothic transformations: The Island of Dr Moreau 163

London horrors: Moreau, the media and the metropolis 167

A London terror: The Invisible Man 170

'No one would have believed': The War of the Worlds 177

Epilogue: Gothic Futures 186.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-213) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

140390510X

OCLC:

51983317