Utopias and Dystopias in the Fiction of H. G. Wells and William Morris

This book is about the fiercely contrasting visions of two of the nineteenth century's greatest utopian writers. A wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study, it emphasizes that space is a key factor in utopian fiction, often a barometer of mankind's successful relationship with nature, or an indicator of danger. Emerging and critically acclaimed scholars consider the legacy of two great utopian writers, exploring their use of space and time in the creation of sites in which contemporary social concerns are investigated and reordered. A variety of locations is featured, including Morris's quasi-fourteenth century London, the lush and corrupted island, a routed and massacred English countryside, the high-rises of the future and the vertiginous landscape of another Earth beyond the stars.

Introduction; Emelyne Godfrey.- SETTING THE SCENE.- Kelmscott House: Threshold to Utopia; Michael Sherborne.- PART I. TIME AS A KIND OF SPACE.- 1. Imaginary Hindsight: Contemporary History in William Morris and H. G. Wells; Helen Kingstone.- 2. `Quivers of Idiosyncrasy : Modern Statistics in A Modern Utopia; Genie Babb.- 3. `All Good Earthly Things Are In Utopia Also : Familiarity and Irony in the Better Worlds of Morris and Wells; Ben Carver.- PART II. MATTERS OUT OF PLACE: DANGER AND DISRUPTION IN UTOPIA.- 4. Problems in Utopia from the Thames Valley to the Pacific Edge; Tony Pinkney.- 5. Utopia s the Thing: An Analysis of Utopian Program and Impulse in H.G. Wells s
The Island of Doctor Moreau
; Rhys Williams.- 6. `Great Safe Places Down Deep : Subterranean Spaces in the Early Novels of H.G. Wells; Catherine Redford.- PART III. DISTORTED REALITIES, SHATTERED PERSPECTIVES.- 7. The Urban Wasteland in H.G. Wells s
The War of the Worlds
; Vera Benczik.- 8. An Epistemological Journey: the Uncertainty of Construed Realities in
The Time Machine
; Károly Pintér.- PART IV. UNNATURAL THEOLOGIES IN THE ISLAND.- 9. Dark Artistry in
The Island of Doctor Moreau
; Sarah Faulkner.- 10. Punishment, Purgatory, and Paradise; Hating the Sin and Sometimes the Sinner in H.G. Wells s
The Island of Doctor Moreau
and
The Invisible Man
; Gianluca Guerriero.- 11. Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island: The Novel as Fable; John Hammond.- PART V. BUILDING THE FUTURE.- 12. `Flowers and a Landscape Were the Only Attractions Here : The England of Wells and Morris in Aldous Huxley s Interpretation; Maxim Shadurski.- 13. Modernist Ideals: The Utopian Designs of William Morris, Peter Behrens, and the Social Housing Schemes in Mid-Twentieth Century Sheffield; Clare Holdstock.- Bibliography.- Index.-