Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings

Greenslade, William

Abstract

Hubert Crackanthorpe (1870-1896) made a critically important contribution to the evolution of the modernist short story in Britain: his stories combine an unrelenting realism with a conscious aestheticizing of their often troubling, bleak subject matter. His unexplained death in Paris at the age of 26 cut short a highly promising literary career. His collections of short stories - the strikingly realist Wreckage (1893), the psychologically complex Sentimental Studies (1895), and the posthumous Last Studies (1897) - together with the prose poems of Vignettes (1896), were much admired by Henry James and his contemporaries, Dowson, Johnson, and Symons, as the work of a leading writer of critical Decadence. As co-editor of the short-lived periodical, The Albermarle and campaigning literary journalist, Crackanthorpe was a key participant in the most significant literary and artistic debates of the early 1890s: "facts" versus "effects" in literature; the efficacy of realism/naturalism; questions of taste, "reticence" and the handling of controversial subject matter. This fully annotated, critical text comprises the most extensive collection to date of Crackanthorpe's writing. As well as uncollected stories, the volume includes a short story never previously published in book form. The edition also contains a selection of Crackanthorpe's critical writings, a bibliographical survey of his work and two extensive introductory critical essays.

• Book Type: Edited Book
• Online Publication Date: May 7, 2020
• Publication Date: May 7, 2020
• Deposit Date: Nov 14, 2023
• Series Title: MHRA Jewelled Tortoise
• Series Number: 7
• ISBN: 9781781889664
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv18zhfbc
• Keywords: Hubert Crackanthorpe Selected Writings
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11445092
• Contract Date: Jan 7, 2017