| The Centre of Things: Political Fiction in Britain from Disraeli to the Present Contributor(s): Harvie, Christopher (Author) |
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ISBN: 0044455933 ISBN-13: 9780044455936 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $44.60 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: October 1991 Annotation: b /b b i The Centre of Things /i /b is an historical and critical look at the role of fiction in British politics from the beginning of the age of "print capitalism" to the present, focusing particularly on successful novelist turned Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Harvie examines the "Disraelian" political novel, with parliament the stage about which the action revolves. He cites novels by John Galt, George Eliot, Trollope, H.G. Wells, and Joyce Cary, all whose work subjected parliament to the rigorous scrutiny of "civic virtue." Harvie relates the factors which made the political novel such a lure--for publisher and politician alike-- to changes in media and politics; as a literary critic he disentangles the complex web of allusion, the character and plotting which "fixed" the genre. b /b b i The Centre of Things /i /b is scholarly, scornful, and witty, and the first treatment of its important subject for nearly seventy years. Treating the contemporary scene, it is also a sharp, destructive indictment of the self-deception of a complacent, incompetent political elite-- left and right--within a state whose overcentralized media and parliamentary "elective dictatorship" have brought it to the edge of collapse. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Media Studies - Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh |
| Dewey: 823.009 |
| LCCN: 90046071 |
| Physical Information: 0.75" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (1.04 lbs) 256 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This is an excellent survey of the British political novel.' - Contemporary Review |
