Science, Fiction, and the Fin-de-Siècle Periodical Press

Explores the first appearance of 'science fiction' in the pages of late nineteenth-century general interest periodicals.

Will Tattersdill (Author)

9781107144651, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 March 2016

241 pages, 20 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 1.5 cm, 0.51 kg

'Tattersdill highlights the diversity, inclusivity and popularity of such hybrid publications and explores a fascinating mixture of texts-from stories to non-fiction articles, as well as advertisements and interview pieces.' Rachel Crossland, Metascience

In this revisionary study, Will Tattersdill argues against the reductive 'two cultures' model of intellectual discourse by exploring the cultural interactions between literature and science embodied in late nineteenth-century periodical literature, tracing the emergence of the new genre that would become known as 'science fiction'. He examines a range of fictional and non-fictional fin-de-siècle writing around distinct scientific themes: Martian communication, future prediction, X-rays, and polar exploration. Every chapter explores a major work of H. G. Wells, but also presents a wealth of exciting new material drawn from a variety of late Victorian periodicals. Arguing that the publications in which they appeared, as well as the stories themselves, played a crucial part in the development of science fiction, Tattersdill uses the form of the general interest magazine as a way of understanding the relationship between the arts and the sciences, and the creation of a new literary genre.

Introduction: material entanglements
1. Intrinsic intelligibility
2. Distance over time
3. New photography
4. Further northward
Conclusion: bad science and the study of English
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Press & journalism [KNTJ], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Reportage & collected journalism [DNJ]