Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the British Essay
- The Cambridge History of the British Essay
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Preface to a History in the Manner of an Essay
- Part I Forming the British Essay
- Part II The Great Age of the British Essay
- Part III Assaying Culture, Education, Reform
- Part IV Fractured Selves, Fragmented Worlds
- 29 The Preface Essay
- 30 A Brief History of Travel and the Essay
- 31 Grist for the Mill: History and the Essay in India, 1870–1920
- 32 The African Gold Coast Essay: Straddling Fact and Prophecy
- 33 The Short Essay in Context, 1870–1920
- 34 A Room of One’s Own: The New Woman and the Essay
- 35 The Essay in the Age of Catastrophe
- 36 Undiplomatic Relations: Modernism and the Essay
- 37 Feeling Real: Psychoanalysis and the Essay
- 38 Transatlantic Essayism
- Part V The Essay and the Essayistic Today
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
33 - The Short Essay in Context, 1870–1920
from Part IV - Fractured Selves, Fragmented Worlds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2024
- The Cambridge History of the British Essay
- The Cambridge History of the British Essay
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Preface to a History in the Manner of an Essay
- Part I Forming the British Essay
- Part II The Great Age of the British Essay
- Part III Assaying Culture, Education, Reform
- Part IV Fractured Selves, Fragmented Worlds
- 29 The Preface Essay
- 30 A Brief History of Travel and the Essay
- 31 Grist for the Mill: History and the Essay in India, 1870–1920
- 32 The African Gold Coast Essay: Straddling Fact and Prophecy
- 33 The Short Essay in Context, 1870–1920
- 34 A Room of One’s Own: The New Woman and the Essay
- 35 The Essay in the Age of Catastrophe
- 36 Undiplomatic Relations: Modernism and the Essay
- 37 Feeling Real: Psychoanalysis and the Essay
- 38 Transatlantic Essayism
- Part V The Essay and the Essayistic Today
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Because of rising literacy rates and improved printing technology, the short periodical essay gained in prominence and ubiquity in Britain between 1870 and 1920. Essayists such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Max Beerbohm, G.K. Chesterton, and Hilaire Belloc presided over the essay’s shift away from its long, mid-Victorian magisterial form to something more entertaining, modest, immediate, and apparently trivial. However, this shorter essay accomplished serious thought by way of its lightness, and was uniquely suited to twentieth-century urban modernity, as each of these authors show in their most anthologised essays. While this short, entertaining form of the essay was most prominent, the essay thrived in an unprecedented number of contexts and forms during this period. Oscar Wilde demonstrates the essay’s range in his immediate, paradoxical, irreverent, and serious letter from prison, ‘De Profundis’, and in doing so, hints at the future of the essay.
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- The Cambridge History of the British Essay , pp. 497 - 510Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024