The city in literature

About this book

In this sweeping literary encounter with the Western idea of the city, Richard Lehan delves into literature, philosophy, and urban history to untangle the contradictory images and meanings of the urban experience. He traces the relationship between literature and the city from the early novel in England to the apocalyptic cityscapes of Thomas Pynchon. Along the way, Lehan gathers a rich entourage of support that includes Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Raymond Chandler. The European city is read against the decline of feudalism and the rise of empire and totalitarianism, the American city against the phenomenon of the wilderness, the frontier, and the rise of the megalopolis.