Richard Jefferies, After London; or Wild England / / Mark Frost, Richard Jefferies.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Complete eBook-Package 2017
• VerfasserIn: Jefferies, Richard,; Frost, Mark,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Edinburgh Critical Editions of Nineteenth-Century Texts
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.)

A scholarly edition of a significant and exciting late Victorian science fiction novelRichard Jefferies’ After London is uncanny and intriguing, an adventure story, quest romance, dystopia, and Darwinian novel rolled into one, but also a pioneering work of Victorian science fiction. Imagining a mysterious natural catastrophe that plunges its people into a barbaric future, Jefferies remarkable novel drowns and destroys London and depicts a challenging ‘Wild England’ dominated by nature and filled with evolved animals and devolved humans. Of its time but also distinctively modern, After London can, in its uneasy expression of Victorian and post-Victorian anxieties about industrial development, urbanisation, natural resources, and climate, be regarded as one of the first novels of the Anthropocene. This new critical edition provides one of the earliest examples of a global catastrophe novel that is part of a flowering of nineteenth-century science fiction. It situates After London in a tradition of mid-late Victorian texts that respond to the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace and responds to a host of other key social, political, and cultural issues of the period.Key FeaturesOpens up readings that situate the text in relation to a range of literary, cultural and biographical contexts including Jefferies’ life, ideas, and worksIncludes a chronology of Jefferies' life, a list of his key works, a detailed scholarly introduction, and appendices including the text of 'The Great Snow', a catastrophe short story set in London; and 'Alone in London'; both of which reveal his attitude to London, urban life and the future of humanity

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- A Richard Jefferies Chronology -- A Note on the Text -- Part I The Relapse into Barbarism -- CHAPTER I THE GREAT FOREST -- CHAPTER II WILD ANIMALS -- CHAPTER III MEN OF THE WOODS -- CHAPTER IV THE INVADERS -- CHAPTER V THE LAKE -- Part II Wild England -- CHAPTER I SIR FELIX -- CHAPTER II THE HOUSE OF AQUILA -- CHAPTER III THE STOCKADE -- CHAPTER IV THE CANOE -- CHAPTER V BARON AQUILA -- CHAPTER VI THE FOREST TRACK -- CHAPTER VII THE FOREST TRACK CONTINUED -- CHAPTER VIII THYMA CASTLE -- CHAPTER IX SUPERSTITIONS -- CHAPTER X THE FEAST -- CHAPTER XI AURORA -- CHAPTER XII NIGHT IN THE FOREST -- CHAPTER XIII SAILING AWAY -- CHAPTER XIV THE STRAITS -- CHAPTER XV SAILING ONWARDS -- CHAPTER XVI THE CITY -- CHAPTER XVII THE CAMP -- CHAPTER XVIII THE KING’S LEVY -- CHAPTER XIX FIGHTING -- CHAPTER XX IN DANGER -- CHAPTER XXI A VOYAGE -- CHAPTER XXII DISCOVERIES -- CHAPTER XXIII STRANGE THINGS -- CHAPTER XXIV FIERY VAPOURS -- CHAPTER XXV THE SHEPHERDS -- CHAPTER XXVI BOW AND ARROW -- CHAPTER XXVII SURPRISED -- CHAPTER XXVIII FOR AURORA -- Appendix 1 Richard Jefferies, ‘The Great Snow’ (fragment, 1876) -- Appendix 2 Richard Jefferies, [‘Alone in London’] (Untitled fragment, undated MS, British Library, Add. MSS 58817)