num_pages: 448
description: The Edwardian age stands in a pivotal position between the nineteenth century and the twentieth. Professor Hynes sees the brief stretch of history between the death of Queen Victoria and the outbreak of the First World War not as a golden age but as a time of waiting a time of anxieties a time of conflict between the old and the new. A growing awareness of social problems resulted not in action but in worry not in solutions but in feelings and in turmoil--turmoil out of which contemporary England was born.In this portrayal of the intellectual climate of Edwardian England the author chooses representative (sometimes little-known) figures and issues to define the typical crises and habits of thought of the age. He draws upon such diverse materials as the diaries of Beatrice Webb the novels of H. G. Wells and Galsworthy Baden-Powell's boy scout handbook the government report on Physical Deterioration the literature of invasion long-forgotten plays and the writings of Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis. He treats the areas of conflict that seem to him most crucial--politics science the arts and the relations between men and women. The cast of characters is large and varied: one finds here Tories Liberals and Socialists artists and reformers psychoanalysts and psychic researchers sexologists suffragettes and censors.Previously unpublished materials included in the book are letters by H. G. Wells John Galsworthy and Harley Granville Barker as well as extracts from the diaries of Beatrice Webb. Among the contemporary illustrations are four by the great Edwardian photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn here reproduced for the first time.
language: English
title: The Edwardian Turn of Mind
publisher: Pimlico