Literature, Technology and Magical Thinking, 1880-1920

by Pamela Thurschwell

Overview

Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siècle. She argues that as new technologies, such as the telegraph and the telephone, began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on, they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Making unexpected connections between, for instance, speaking on the telephone and speaking to the dead, she examines how psychical research is reflected in the work of Henry James, George DuMaurier and Oscar Wilde among others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521022439
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/10/2005
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture , #32
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.47(d)
Lexile:	1590L (what's this?)

About the Author

Pamela Thurschwell is a lecturer in twentieth century literature at University College London.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Severing the wire: the Society for Psychical Research's experiments in intimacy; 2. New forms of outrage: hypnotic aesthetes and the 1890s; 3. 'That Imperial stomach is no seat for ladies': James's wars, James's ghosts; 4. Henry James and Theodora Bosanquet: on the typewriter, in the cage, at the Ouija board; 5. Psychoanalysis's dangerous proximities: telepathy, psychosis and the real event; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

"Thurschwell has written an original, important exploration..." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920

From the Publisher