Catastrophe & imagination
Subtitle: English & American writings from 1870 to 1950
By: John McCormick ; with a new introduction by the author.
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New Brunswick, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 327
Subjects: English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; American fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Disasters in literature.; Literature and society -- English-speaking countries.; War and literature -- English-speaking countries.
Other titles: Catastrophe and imagination
Description: Catastrophe and Imagination explores fiction in America and England from 1870 to 1950, measuring the impact of the twentieth century's wars on the literary imagination. McCormick holds that the novel has a unique relationship to society, and defines this in relation to the many catastrophes of his era - wars, revolutions, and other outrages on the social order.

After an initial survey of society in the novels of Jane Austen, Dickens, and Thackeray, to name only a few, he analyzes what the novel is not, with reference to the work of Virginia Woolf, John Steinbeck, and D. H. Lawrence.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.