The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension describes the development and proliferation of the idea of higher dimensional space in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. An idea from mathematics that was appropriated by occultist thought, it emerged in the fin de siecle as a staple of genre fiction and influenced a number of important Modernist writers and artists. Providing a context for thinking of space in dimensional terms, the volume describes an active interplay between self-fashioning disciplines and a key moment in the popularisation of science. It offers new research into spiritualism and the Theosophical Society and studies a series of curious hybrid texts. Examining works by Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, H.G. Wells, Henry James, H. P. Lovecraft, and others, the volume explores how new theories of the possibilities of time and space influenced fiction writers of the period, and how literature shaped, and was in turn shaped by, the reconfiguration of imaginative space occasioned by the n-dimensional turn. A timely study of the interplay between philosophy, literature, culture, and mathematics, it offers a rich resource for readers interested in nineteenth century literature, Modernist studies, science fiction, and gothic scholarship.

About the Author
Mark Blacklock is a cultural historian and novelist. His critically acclaimed first novel I'm Jack was published by Granta in 2015. He lectures on Cultural Studies and English Literature at Birkbeck College and writes for the national press.

Reviews
a rich trove combining a wealth of research, historical context, and subtle argumentation and analysis. * Deanna K. Kreisel, Victorian Studies *
a highly intelligent, perceptive, and stimulating intervention into how a mathematical idea was transposed into literary fiction, inflecting its spatial concerns and prefiguring new modes of representation. * Maxim Shadurski, The Wellsian *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198755487
Author Mark Blacklock
Format Hardback
Page Count 246
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 163mm * 21mm