Until fairly recently, the 'Authorized Version' of cultural modernism stated that the secularizing trends of liberal modernity - and the resultant emphasis on irony, parody and dissolution in modernist artforms - had pushed religion to the edges of early twentieth-century culture. This Companion complicates this 'Authorized Version' by furnishing students and academic researchers with more nuanced and probing assessments of the intersections - and tensions - between religion, myth and creativity during this half century of geopolitical ferment. The Companion addresses the variety and specificity of modernist spiritualities; as well as the intricately textured and shifting standpoints that modernist figures have occupied in relation to theological traditions, practices, creeds, and institutions. What emerges is a multi-textured account of modernism's deep-rooted concern with the historical and established forms of religion as well as new engagements with 'occulture' and indigenous traditions. In short, this Companion supplies a lively and original introduction to the aesthetic, publishing, technological and philosophical trends that shape debates about spirituality, community and self from the 1890s to the 1940s and beyond.

A new scholarly edition of a major late-Victorian scientific romance novel Marie Corelli's A Romance of Two Worlds is regarded as one of the most culturally important Victorian bestsellers. This critical edition offers instructive access to this multifaceted but still largely underappreciated novel that is a key text for scholars and students of late-Victorian women's writing. It also raises urgent questions about a wide array of textual and cultural concerns, especially the form and function of the Victorian 'bestseller'. Key Features Contains a thorough critical and analytical introduction, annotations and appendices Provides context and underlines the aesthetic significance of Corelli's supernatural romance Engages with the full range of secondary scholarship on this neglected late-Victorian author

A new scholarly edition of a bold yet overlooked Victorian text that blends the genres of memoir, travelogue, ethnography and the realist novel Permits students and academic researchers to access more subtle assessments of Lavengro, as well as a range of relevant contexts Reappraises the relation of Lavengro to nineteenth-century writings on Romani and traveller culture Explores George Borrow's influence on an array of later Victorian and modernist authors such as Ford Madox Ford and Virginia Woolf. Surveys and gauges recent debates and critical accounts of George Borrow's life and literary career This critical edition of George Borrow's Lavengro: The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest (1851) brings a renewed focus on a formally inventive and original text for scholars of the nineteenth-century autobiographical novel and travelogue. This edition reflects and develops research that anchors Borrow's energetically eccentric vision in a range of notable contexts. The scholarly introduction gives readers unfamiliar with the formidably prolific Borrow an opportunity to discover more about this author's career at home and abroad (as a translator for the British and Foreign Bible Society), his stylistic innovations, and how Lavengro evokes a 'wild England' that became crucial for admirers in the next century such as D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, and Virginia Woolf.

A new scholarly edition of a major late-Victorian scientific romance novel Marie Corelli's A Romance of Two Worlds is regarded as one of the most culturally important Victorian bestsellers. This critical edition offers instructive access to this multifaceted but still largely underappreciated novel that is a key text for scholars and students of late-Victorian women's writing. It also raises urgent questions about a wide array of textual and cultural concerns, especially the form and function of the Victorian 'bestseller'. Key Features Contains a thorough critical and analytical introduction, annotations and appendices Provides context and underlines the aesthetic significance of Corelli's supernatural romance Engages with the full range of secondary scholarship on this neglected late-Victorian author