Science Fiction Before 1900: Imagination Discovers Technology PDF
Preview Science Fiction Before 1900: Imagination Discovers Technology
SCIENCE FICFoTrIPOasNcaBlDEuFcOomRmEu1n900 IMAGINATION DISCOVERS TECHNOLOGY GENRES INCONTEXT THE SHORTSTORY TheWReahlioty ofArtifice Charles E.May FANTASY The Liberationof Imagination RichardMathews BIOGRAPHY Writing Lives CatherineN. Parke THESEAVOYAGENARRATIVE RobertFoulke SCIENCEFICTIONBEFORE 1900 ImaginationDiscoversTechnology PaulK.Alkon SCIENCEFICTION AFTER 1900 From theSteam Man totheStars BrooksLandon NATUREWRITING The Pastoral Impulse inAmerica Don Scheese THE FAIRYTALE The Magic Mirror of Imagination Steven Swann Jones TRAVEL WRITING The Selfand theWorld Casey Blanton SCIENCE FICTION BEFORE 1900 IMAGINATION DISCOVERS TECHNOLOGY Paul K.Alkon Routledge NewYorkand London Publishedin2002by Routledge 29West35thStreet NewYork,NY10001 PublishedinGreatBritain by Routledge 11NewFetterLane LondonEC4P4EE Routledgeisan imprintoftheTaylor & FrancisGroup. Originally published inhardcoverbyTwaynePublishers,animprintofTheGaleGroup. Thispaperbackedition published byarrangement withTwaynePublishers. Copyright © 1994byTwaynePublishers FirstRoutledgepaperack edition2002 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-free paper. Allrightsreserved. Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproduced orutilizedinany formorbyanyelectronic, mechanical, orothermeans,nowknownorhereafter invented, includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinanyinformation storageorretrievalsystem,with outpermission inwritingfromthepublisher. 10987654321 Cataloging-in-PublicationDataavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. ISBN0-415-93887-2(pbk) ForPascalDucommun Who knows what the Utopian edition ofthis bookshould contain General Editor's Statement Genre studies have been acentral concern ofAnglo-American and Europeanliterarytheory foratleastthe pastquartercen tury, and the academic interest hasbeen reflected,forexample, in new college courses in slave narratives, autobiography, biogra phy, nature writing, and the literature of travel as well as in the rapid expansion ofgenre theory itself.Genre has alsobecome an indispensable term for trade publishers and the vast readership they serve. Indeed, few general bookstores do not have sections devoted to science fiction, romance, and mystery fiction. Still, genre isamong the slipperiest ofliterary terms, as any examina tionofgenre theoriesand their historieswillsuggest. In conceiving this series we have tried, on the one hand, to avoid the comicallypedantic spirit that informs Polonius' recita tion of kinds of drama and, on the other hand, the equally unhelpful insistence that every literary production is a unique expression that must not be forced into any system of classifica tion. Wehave instead developed ourlistofgenres, which range from ancientcomedy tothe Western, with the conviction that by common consent kinds of literature do exist-not as fixed cate gories but as fluid ones that change over time as the result of complex interplay ofauthors, audiences, and literary and cultur al institutions. Asindividual titles in the series demonstrate, the idea ofgenre offersus provocative ways tostudyboth the conti nuities and adaptability of literature as a familiar and inex haustiblesource ofhumanimagination. vii SCIENCEFICTIONBEFORE1900 Recognition of the fluid boundaries both within and among genres will provide, we believe, a useful array of perspectives from which to study literature's complex development. Genres, as traditional but open ways of understanding the world, con tribute to our capacity to respond to narrative and expressive forms and offer means to discern moral significances embodied in these forms. Genres, in short, serve ethical as wellas aesthetic purposes, and the volumes in this series attempt to demonstrate how this double benefit has been achieved as these genres have been transformed over the years. Each title in the series should be measuredagainst thislarge ambition. RonGottesman viii Contents Preface xi Chronology xv Chapter 1 AShortHistoryofthe Future 1 Chapter 2 England:New Viewpoints 22 Chapter 3 France: Technophilia 56 Chapter 4 America: Technophobia 101 Notes and References 139 Bibliographic Essay 149 Recommended Titles 161 Index 171 ix Preface Everyfanofsciencefictionrememberswith pleasureArthur C. Clarke's classic1953short story "The Nine BillionNames of God." But I believe there would be few happy memories of an introduction tosciencefiction'searlydays that read likeacatalog of the nine billionworks before 1900with some claimas precur sors or exemplars of the genre. Of course there were not quite that many.There are,however, enough seriousclaimants sothat to mention, letalone discuss,them alloreven those most widely read in their time would create an impression of astronomical magnitude more bewildering than enlightening. I intend this book, therefore, to provide soundings rather than a survey. Those who know, or think they know, the history ofsciencefic tion willhave the satisfactionofdeploring myomissionofmany favorite and doubtless relevant textsthat are among what I con 8 46 sider the"ninebillion." 4 92 The very plenitude of works from which historians must 0 47 choose and over whose claims they quarrel is a measure of sci 1 es| ence fiction's impressive scope and vitality. No recently crystal sall lized genre touches on so many urgent human concerns and R bl| draws more widely on the resources of previous literature. No e s- formbetter illustratesthe dictum that genres serveethicalaswell si a o as aesthetic purposes. Science fiction excels at articulating the new possibilitiesforgood and evil that shape our destinies in an agewhensciencehasacceleratedthe proliferationoftechnologies once beyond even the reach of fantasy. My selection has been xi
The list of books you might like
