20th Century Literature Archives - Page 2 of 2

February 12, 2018February 19, 2018 Conor20th Century Literature, 21st Century Literature, American Literature, Horror, Popular Culture

Episode 14: H.P. Lovecraft & Weird Fiction

H.P. Lovecraft’s Weird Fiction The American writer H.P. Lovecraft wrote weird fiction. His work is both weird, in the conventional sense of the word, and Weird, in a very specific sense. His tales are not typical horror stories, but instead invoke a type of cosmic terror, a slow realization read more…

January 5, 2018January 6, 2018 Conor19th Century Literature, 20th Century Literature, British Literature, Fantasy

Notes on a Selection of Fictional Countries [Article]

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to invent a new country. In the 18th and 19th centuries there were still places unknown to European society – “blank spaces on the earth”, as Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness once put it. New, unheard of countries were begging to be discovered, mapped, read more…

December 18, 2017January 25, 2018 Conor19th Century Literature, 20th Century Literature, Horror, Supernatural, Victorian

Episode 13: The Ghost Stories of MR James

Words To That Effect + Down Below The Reservoir This week’s episode, the end of Season 1, is a Christmas Special. It’s a collaboration with the disturbingly good horror podcast, Down Below The Reservoir. The result is an episode about the ghost stories of MR James, followed by an audio-drama read more…

November 27, 2017January 25, 2018 Conor20th Century Literature, Film, History, Horror, Popular Culture

Episode 12: The Horrifically Complicated History of Zombies

The History of Zombies from Haiti to Hollywood Whether we like it or not, the zombies are coming for us all. Films, books, computer games, comics and TV shows. From historical and mythical zombies to claims to have proven the scientific truth behind zombification. From the gruesome, cannibalistic monsters of read more…

October 2, 2017January 25, 2018 Conor20th Century Literature, American Literature, Crime, History, Medicine, Science

Episode 8: A Lawyer, an Author, and a Murderer – The Trial of William Edward Hickman

“The most horrible crime of the 1920s” The case of William Edward Hickman went to trial in Los Angeles in 1928. The accused was charged with the gruesome murder of a 12-year-old girl, and he faced the death penalty. The trial was reported all across the U.S. because it was read more…

September 17, 2017January 4, 2018 Conor19th Century Literature, 20th Century Literature, American Literature, History

Owen Wister and the Fictional American West [Article]

Travelling Out West Episode 6 of Words To That Effect (listen here) looked at some of the influences of neurasthenia, a nervous ailment that was ultimately as cultural as it was medical. For men living in large Eastern U.S. cities, one of the frequently advised cures for neurasthenia was a read more…

September 4, 2017January 25, 2018 Conor19th Century Literature, 20th Century Literature, American Literature, Medicine, Supernatural

Episode 6: Neurasthenia, Cowboys, and Feminists

Neurasthenia: The “National Disease of America” In 1881 an American neurologist named George Miller Beard published a hugely influential book: American Nervousness. In it, he laid out the symptoms, cures, and implications of what he called “neurasthenia”, essentially what one might call nervous exhaustion. Beard didn’t coin the term but read more…

August 30, 2017January 4, 2018 Conor20th Century Literature, American Literature, Science, Science Fiction

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom Novels [Article]

Barsoom and Mars Life on Mars Percival Lowell’s theory of Martian life and the famous canals of Mars influenced a huge number of science fiction writers. Whether one believed that the canals really were proof of life on the red planet, the theory certainly offered plenty of scope for fiction. read more…

August 20, 2017January 25, 2018 Conor20th Century Literature, Literature and Science, Science, Science Fiction

Episode 5: Canals on Mars

Percival Lowell, Science Fiction, and the Canals on Mars (c) ESO / M. Kornmesser Artist’s impression of Mars about four billion years ago. For as long as humans have been looking at the night sky, the planet Mars has fascinated us. But while astronomers had charted the movements of read more…

August 10, 2017January 9, 2018 Conor20th Century Literature, 21st Century Literature, Popular Culture

Genrefication & Popular Literature [Article]

“Genrefication”? Did you just make that up? Episode 4 of Words To That Effect (listen here) explores the world of popular and literary fiction. One of the ideas that comes up is that of “genrefication”, the concept that the traditional boundaries between “literary” and “genre” (or popular) fiction are read more…

August 6, 2017January 25, 2018 Conor20th Century Literature, 21st Century Literature, Popular Culture

Episode 4: Popular Literature

What is popular literature? Walk into most bookshops and you will find fiction categories like “Crime”, “Science Fiction”, and “Horror”. You will also tend to find a section called “Literature”. But how does a book get placed here? Is there really such a thing as “Literature” (with a capital “L”), read more…

July 17, 2017January 9, 2018 Conor19th Century Literature, 20th Century Literature, British Literature, Science Fiction

Lost World Literature [Article]

Filling in the Blank Spaces In Joseph Conrad’s famous 1899 novella Heart of Darkness the narrator, Marlow, notes that since his childhood the world has become increasingly mapped and explored : “At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly read more…

July 10, 2017January 25, 2018 Conor19th Century Literature, 20th Century Literature, British Literature, Science, Supernatural, Victorian

Episode 2: Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, and Spiritualism

Sherlock Holmes is the most rational and scientific detective of them all. So why did his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, passionately believe in ghosts, fairies, and telepathy? Arthur Conan Doyle Arthur Conan Doyle is now best remembered as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. In fact, his creation has long taken read more…

June 30, 2017July 20, 2017 Conor20th Century Literature, British Literature, Detective Fiction, World War I

[Article] Invasion Fiction to Spy Novels: Erskine Childers and John Buchan

The Rise of the Spy Novel: The Riddle of the Sands and The Thirty-Nine Steps Episode 1 of Words To That Effect was on invasion fiction, sometimes also called invasion literature or future war fiction (you can listen to episode 1 here). If you are interested in the area then read more…

June 25, 2017January 25, 2018 Conor20th Century Literature, British Literature, History, Science Fiction, World War I

Episode 1: Invasion Fiction, William Le Queux, and Fake News

What is invasion fiction? Who was the mysterious William Le Queux? Why did a group of famous British authors secretly meet at the outbreak of World War I? And what did “fake news” look like a century ago? Episode 1 of Words To That Effect explores the power of read more…