Overview

What do tales of stalking vampires, restless Egyptian mummies, foreign master criminals, barbarian Eastern hordes and stomping Prussian soldiers have in common? As Gothic Invasions explains, they may all be seen as instances of invasion fiction, a paranoid fin-de-siecle popular literary phenomenon that responded to prevalent societal fears of the invasion of Britain by an array of hostile foreign forces in the period before the First World War. Gothic Invasions traces the roots of invasion anxiety to concerns about the downside of Britain's continuing imperial expansion: fears of growing inter-European rivalry and colonial wars and rebellion. It explores how these fears circulated across the British empire and were expressed in fictional narratives drawing strongly upon and reciprocally transforming the conventions and themes of gothic writing. Gothic Invasions enhances our understanding of the interchange between popular culture and politics at this crucial historical juncture, and demonstrates the instrumentality of the ever-versatile and politically-charged gothic mode in this process.

Full Product Details

9781786832092

Table of Contents

Reviews

Meticulously researched and impressively theorized, Ailise Bulfin's brilliant study takes us deeper than we have ever been into the paranoid imagination of the British Empire at its fin-de-siecle zenith, showing the extraordinary interplay of imperial geopolitics and popular culture in the decades leading up to the First World War. Bulfin's work offers an important context for the proper understanding of familiar writers such as Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard, and Rudyard Kipling, and makes a fascinating case for the contemporary significance of marginal cultural figures such as Guy Boothby, M. P. Shiel or William Le Queux. --Professor Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Dublin Elegantly written and spanning tales of horror, invasion, crime, intrigue and imperial derring-do, Ailise Bulfin's book provides the fullest study to date of the nightmares, fantasies and fears that kept the late-Victorian and Edwardian reading public awake at night. This is an invaluable work for all those interested in the intersections between fiction, history and popular culture. --Professor Antony Taylor, Sheffield Hallam University

Elegantly written and spanning tales of horror, invasion, crime, intrigue and imperial derring-do, Ailise Bulfin's book provides the fullest study to date of the nightmares, fantasies and fears that kept the late-Victorian and Edwardian reading public awake at night. This is an invaluable work for all those interested in the intersections between fiction, history and popular culture. --Professor Antony Taylor, Sheffield Hallam University Meticulously researched and impressively theorized, Ailise Bulfin's brilliant study takes us deeper than we have ever been into the paranoid imagination of the British Empire at its fin-de-siecle zenith, showing the extraordinary interplay of imperial geopolitics and popular culture in the decades leading up to the First World War. Bulfin's work offers an important context for the proper understanding of familiar writers such as Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard, and Rudyard Kipling, and makes a fascinating case for the contemporary significance of marginal cultural figures such as Guy Boothby, M. P. Shiel or William Le Queux. --Professor Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Dublin

Meticulously researched and impressively theorized, Ailise Bulfin's brilliant study takes us deeper than we have ever been into the paranoid imagination of the British Empire at its fin-de-si�cle zenith, showing the extraordinary interplay of imperial geopolitics and popular culture in the decades leading up to the First World War. Bulfin's work offers an important context for the proper understanding of familiar writers such as Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard, and Rudyard Kipling, and makes a fascinating case for the contemporary significance of marginal cultural figures such as Guy Boothby, M. P. Shiel or William Le Queux. --Professor Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Dublin Elegantly written and spanning tales of horror, invasion, crime, intrigue and imperial derring-do, Ailise Bulfin's book provides the fullest study to date of the nightmares, fantasies and fears that kept the late-Victorian and Edwardian reading public awake at night. This is an invaluable work for all those interested in the intersections between fiction, history and popular culture. --Professor Antony Taylor, Sheffield Hallam University

Author Information

This book will mainly attract an academic audience undergraduate, postgraduate and academics; and will serve useful as teaching and research resource. It will also be of interest to the general public.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available