John S. Partington, ed., H. G. Wells's Fin-de-Siècle: Twenty-first Century Reflections on the Early H. G. Wells (Peter Lang 2007) ISBN 9783631571118

The essays contained in this collection focus on the early H. G. Wells, the scientific romancer, the comic novelist and the young author discovering the literary élite. Written at the crossroads of a new century, the authors of these essays use their own fin-de-siècle experiences to look back one hundred years and critically assess the writings of an earlier fin-de-siècle. With seven chapters dealing with The Time Machine, The Wheels of Chance, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The War of the Worlds, Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr Polly, readers receive a detailed overview of Wells's literary output between 1895 and 1910. Two further chapters treat Wells's literary friendships, assessing his personal and professional relationships with the Victorian realist, George Gissing, and the pioneering modernist, Joseph Conrad, while the final chapter reveals Wells as a 'time traveller', employing poststructuralist techniques fifty years before that expression was coined. http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?vSiteName=PDFResult.cfm&vItem=57111&vLang=E

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Table of Contents

• John S. Partington, 'Introduction'
• Katrina Harack, 'Limning the Impossible: Time Travel, the Uncanny and Destructive Futurity in H. G. Wells's The Time Machine'
• Nick Redfern, 'Abjection and Evolution in The Island of Doctor Moreau'
• Kimberly Jackson, 'Vivisected Language in H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau'
• Brett Davidson, 'The War of the Worlds Considered as a Modern Myth'
• Hiroshi So, 'The Wheels of Chance and the Discourse of Improvement of Health'
• Barbara Bond, 'H. G. Wells's Tono-Bungay as a Reflection of Its Time'
• Kevin Swafford, 'Aesthetics, Narrative and the Critique of Respectability in The History of Mr Polly'
• Simon J. James, '"The Truth About Gissing": Reassessing the Literary Friendship of George Gissing and H. G. Wells'
• Linda Dryden, 'H. G. Wells and Joseph Conrad: A Literary Friendship'
• Sylvia Hardy, 'H. G. Wells the Poststructuralist'