Sky of Our Manufacture
The London Fog in British Fiction from Dickens to Woolf
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Virginia Press
Published:30th Mar '16
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The smoke-laden fog of London is one of the most vivid elements in English literature, richly suggestive and blurring boundaries between nature and society in compelling ways. In The Sky of Our Manufacture, Jesse Oak Taylor uses the many depictions of the London fog in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novel to explore the emergence of anthropogenic climate change. In the process, Taylor argues for the importance of fiction in understanding climatic shifts, environmental pollution, and ecological collapse.
The London fog earned the portmanteau ""smog"" in 1905, a significant recognition of what was arguably the first instance of a climatic phenomenon manufactured by modern industry. Tracing the path to this awareness opens a critical vantage point on the Anthropocene, a new geologic age in which the transformation of humanity into a climate-changing force has not only altered our physical atmosphere but imbued it with new meanings. The book examines enduringly popular works--from the novels of Charles Dickens and George Eliot to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, and the Sherlock Holmes mysteries to works by Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf--alongside newspaper cartoons, scientific writings, and meteorological technologies to reveal a fascinating relationship between our cultural climate and the sky overhead.
Taylor’s book has an astonishing breadth of reference, from Punch to scientific papers to canonical literature to children’s stories. The richness of nineteenth-century literature and society discussed here is tremendous, and the readings are wonderfully nuanced and illuminating. One of the most impressive books of ecocriticism I’ve read to date."" — Greg Garrard, University of British Columbia, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism
""Taylor’s masterful book vastly extends the scope of ecocriticism. Through deft analyses of Victorian and early modern texts, he proposes changes to our understanding of narrative and its relation to the ‘natural world. His theoretical command and textual virtuosity produce a vibrant and compelling argument about how climate constructs narrative and about how readers and writers alike, construct climate. This is a must read.""— Karen S. Chase Levenson, University of Virginia. Author of The Victorians and Old Age
"This engaging work of ecocriticism offers a much needed reading of ‘atmosphere’ in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British fiction. Jesse Oak Taylor analyses ‘atmosphere’ as ‘literal, in the meteorological sense’ as well as ideologically and symbolically charged ... Oak Taylor convincingly suggests that a shared ‘atmosphere’ makes it necessary for contemporary readers to think of themselves as part of a post-industrial continuum with the nineteenth century, not only in terms of aesthetic developments, but also in terms of environmental responsibilities." — Jessica Howell, Review of English Studies
"the book not only examines how Victorian and early twentieth-century writers used literary representation to grapple with incipient climate change, but also tries to show how examining these books might help us to understand the world ‘as it is’ now" - Jessica Howell, Review of English Studies
ISBN: 9780813937939
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 376g
272 pages