"Our impending doom": Seriality's end in late-Victorian proto-dystopian novels

Jessica R. Valdez

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper examines utopian/dystopian time and serial form in several late-nineteenth-century proto-dystopian novels, including Anthony Trollope's The Fixed Period, James De Mille's A Strange Manuscript in a Copper Cylinder, and H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. Through mingling the futuristic orientation of utopias and the presentist cause-and-effect experience of serial form, late nineteenth-century dystopias do not set these other worlds in the distant future; rather, they ask readers to see signs of their mortality in the everyday. In doing so, these paradoxical temporalities combine to highlight the finiteness of late-Victorian institutions in the face of more expansive depictions experience.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-29
Number of pages29
JournalJournal of Modern Periodical Studies
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2018

Keywords

  • Dystopia
  • Novel
  • Serial form
  • Temporality
  • Utopia

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