A01=Allienne R. Becker
Author_Allienne R. Becker
Category=DSBF
Category=DSBH
Category=DSK
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
The Arts
Product details
- ISBN 9780313261237
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 17 Jun 1992
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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During the first part of the nineteenth century, the Lost Worlds Romance, a new literary form, appeared in which an explorer, most often a scientist, made a voyage to what was then considered to be a remote part of the earth where he discovered a fantastic lost world. This book surveys the Lost Worlds Romance from its beginnings as it evolved from travel literature and utopian fiction to its eclipse when there were no more unexplored corners of the earth and it took to the stars, evolving into modern Science Fiction.
Interestingly, these romances reflect the developing natural and social sciences of the times in which they were written. The themes of evolution, teleportation, human longevity, euthanasia, other dimensions, reincarnation, uses of radium, utopian and dystopian societies, among many others, play a prominent part in the discussion of these works. Darwin, Marx, and Freud are shown to have especially influenced the authors of these romances. The book also demonstrates that at a time when the sexual mores of mainline fiction were fairly repressed, writers of the Lost Worlds Romance were permitted much liberty with the erotic imagination. The treatment given to women in these romances is explored.
ALLIENNE R. BECKER is Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Language at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania.
