Realism, Form, and Representation in the Edwardian Novel: Synthetic Realism

Realism, Form, and Representation in the Edwardian Novel recovers a neglected literary history centered on the intricate relationship between fictional representation and the philosophical commitments of realism. In new readings of Edwardian novels including Conrad’s Nostromo and The Secret Agent, Wells’s Tono-Bungay, and Ford’s The Good Soldier, this volume revises and reconsiders key elements of realist novel theory to uncover the representational strategies by which realist writers seek to give form to the force, opacity, and uncertain scope of realities that may lie beyond the material. In restoring a metaphysical dimension to the realist novel’s imaginary, Realism, Form, and Representation in the Edwardian Novel offers a new conceptualisation of realism both within early twentieth-century literary culture and as a transhistorical mode of representation.