John S. Partington Knihy

The intellectual scope and cultural impact of British writers cannot be assessed without reference to their 'European' fortunes. This collection of 20 essays, prepared by an international team of scholars, critics and translators, records the ways in which H.G. Wells has been received, translated and published in different areas of Europe. Wells was described by one of his European critics as a 'seismograph of his age'. He is one of the founding fathers of modern science fiction, and as a novelist, essayist, educationalist and political propagandist his influence has been felt in every European country. This collection of essays offers pioneering insights into Wells's contribution to twentieth-century European literature and to modern political ideas, including the idea of European union.

Since its inception in 1869, Nature has been a leading English-language science journal, prominently featuring H. G. Wells for over fifty years. In this collection, John S. Partington compiles all of Wells's writings in Nature, reviews of his works, and related reportage, creating a comprehensive overview of his engagement with the journal. Additionally, Partington includes the responses these essays and reviews elicited, offering a contextualized history of Wells's reception. Spanning from Wells's first review in 1893 to his obituary in 1946, this volume presents a captivating exploration of his ideas as interpreted through Nature. No other journal showcased Wells as consistently, with contributions from notable thinkers such as Richard Gregory, E. Ray Lankester, J. S. Haldane, and Hilaire Belloc, highlighting Nature's significant influence on shaping perceptions of Wells's work. Partington's tightly-packed volume not only gathers Wells's contributions but also the reactions and reviews, along with other references to his name. An insightful introduction and thorough commentaries provide clarity on the discussions and debates surrounding Wells's contributions, enhancing the understanding of his impact in the scientific community.

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.

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie has had an immense impact on popular culture throughout the world. His folk music brought traditional song from the rural communities of the American southwest to the urban American listener and beyond. But Guthrie's music was only one aspect of his multifaceted life. As well as penning hundreds of songs, Guthrie was also a prolific writer of non-sung prose, an artist and a poet. This collection provides an examination of Guthrie's cultural significance and an evaluation of his impact on American culture and international folk-culture.