Ebook: The Alternative Modernity of the Bicycle in British and French Literature, 1880–1920

Examines the bicycle as a literary device and a cultural phenomenon at the turn of the century in Britain and France

• Offers close readings and contextualisation of novels by canonical cross-channel authors including H.G. Wells, Grant Allen, Maurice Leblanc, Dorothy Richardson and Marcel Proust
• Provides an examination of lesser-known or neglected novels by authors such as Mary Kennard, Matthias Mc Donnell Bodkin and LT Meade
• Includes strong theoretical framework, drawing on the work of mobility theorists such as Wolfgang Schivelbusch, John Urry, Paul Virilio, cultural theorists Raymond Williams, Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, Marc AugŽ
• Presents a cultural studies approach which considers the work of literature in its context and mobilises literature as a lens through which to examine the social impact of the bicycle

This book engages with the long-overlooked bicycle as a crucial literary and cultural object. In a selection of turn-of-the-century fiction, travel writing and non-fiction, cycling is revealed to be a favoured literary device, allowing writers to structure their narratives in new ways or depict a fresh sensory and aesthetic experience. Moreover, this study reveals that from its earliest days, the bicycle played a compelling counter-cultural role, proposing an alternative modernity that directly challenged bourgeois, patriarchal, capitalist society. From blurring gender and class divisions, to offering a more empowering interaction with the machine and allowing an embodied and social experience of space, the bicycle pointed a human-powered route to progress amidst increasingly mechanised visions of the future.