Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth-Century Novel in the Public Sphere

This study re-examines the twentieth-century novel as a form shaped by its problematic, often scandalous relation to the public sphere. Discussing ten texts against the challenges of their milieus, it considers twentieth-century fiction as a tradition of transgression, perennially caught between license and licentiousness, erudition and sedition.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: The Twentieth-Century Novel in the Public Sphere; J.Morrison & S.Watkins The 'nameless shamelessness' of Ulysses : Libel and the Law of Literature; S.Latham 'The aristocracy of intellect': Inversion and Inheritance in Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness ; S.Watkins The Law and the Profits: The Case of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover ; F.Becket 'You Reckon Folks Really Act Like That?': Horror Films and the Work of Popular Culture in Richard Wright's Native Son ; J.Smethurst Scandalous for Being Scandalous: 'monstrous huge fuck[s]' and 'slambanging big sodomies' in Jack Kerouac's On the Road ; R.J. Ellis Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People : The Novel and the Public Sphere; J.Morrison 'Precious Gift/Piece of Shit': Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and the Revenge of History; S.Sharma Toni Morrison's Beloved : The Scandal That Disturbed Domestic Tranquility; M.Mobley Helen Darville, The Hand that Signed the Paper : Who is'Helen Demidenko'?; S.Vice J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace : Reading Race/Reading Scandal; K.Easton Index Afterword; J.Morrison & S.Watkins Index

About the Author :
JAGO MORRISON is Head of English at the University of Chichester, UK. He has published widely on post-war anglophone literature, and is the author of Contemporary Fiction (2003). SUSAN WATKINS is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature in the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. She is co-editor of Studying Literature: A Practical Introduction (1995) and author of Twentieth-Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory into Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).

Review :
'Scandalous Fictions is a deliberately unsettling yet highly readable collection of essays. It asks readers to reconsider what they think they know about ten much-discussed texts, chosen precisely because they have been much discussed. Between them, these books have been accused of blasphemy, obscenity, imposture, libel, licentiousness, sedition, and racism; yet, until now, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the ways in which such literary scandals are produced. This important book offers fresh and exciting perspectives on the acts of public misreading, censorship, and appropriation which result in scandalous fictions.' - Faye Hammill, Senior Lecturer in English, Cardiff University, UK 'This stimulating collection of essays addresses a number of compelling questions about the relationship between fiction and the public sphere. Focusing on scandalous texts which have provoked public fury and in some cases legal action, the contributors explore the implications ofthe breaching of textual boundaries between the aesthetic and the religious, the literary and the juridical, the fictive and the pornographic. In its range and scope and its attention to transnational literature, Scandalous Fictions offers a timely reminder of the culturally productive power of this most hybrid of forms.' - Professor Clare Hanson, University of Southampton, UK 'The short, bold and powerfully written chapters raise a multitude of connections and questions which resonate at the end of the collection, beyond the novels discussed...an innovative and thought-provoking re-reading of many familiar texts.' Women: A Cultural Review