Modernism, Romance and the Fin de Siècle
Popular Fiction and British Culture

An examination of modernism through a variety of adventure and romance narratives by, among others, Bram Stoker and Conan Doyle.

Nicholas Daly (Author)

9780521032926, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 January 2007

232 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.5 cm, 0.355 kg

"I nonetheless find The Spectale of Intimacy a stimulating and satisfying book... One of the satisfying qualities of The Spectale of Intimacy is that it preserves a nice balance between the general and the specific enough but not too much of either- that nicely replicates the very method of their exploration of the relationship between the public and the private in Victorian society." Studies in the Novel

In Modernism, Romance and the Fin de Siècle Nicholas Daly explores the popular fiction of the 'romance revival' of the late Victorian and Edwardian years, focusing on the work of such authors as Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle. Rather than treating these stories as Victorian Gothic, Daly locates them as part of a 'popular modernism'. Drawing on work in cultural studies, this book argues that the vampires, mummies and treasure hunts of these adventure narratives provided a form of narrative theory of cultural change, at a time when Britain was trying to accommodate the 'new imperialism', the rise of professionalism, and the expansion of consumerist culture. Daly's wide-ranging study argues that the presence of a genre such as romance within modernism should force a questioning of the usual distinction between high and popular culture.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Incorporated bodies: Dracula and professionalism
2. The imperial treasure hunt: The Snake's Pass and the limits of romance
3. 'Mummie is become merchandise': the mummy story as commodity theory
4. Across the great divide: modernism, popular fiction and the primitive
Afterword: the long goodbye
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]