Description
Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. Fictional reconstructions of the Gospels continue to find a place in contemporary literature and in the popular imagination. Present day writers of New Testament fiction and drama are usually considered as part of a tradition formed by mid-to-late-twentieth-century authors such as Robert Graves, Nikos Kazantzakis and Anthony Burgess. This book looks back further to the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, when the templates of the majority of today’s Gospel fictions and dramas were set down. In doing so, it examines the extent to which significant works of biblical scholarship both influenced and inspired literary works. Focusing on writers such as Oscar Wilde, George Moore and Marie Corelli, this timely new addition to the English Association Monographs series will be essential reading for scholars working at the intersection of literature and theology.
Trade ReviewIt is refreshing to see attention being paid to the highly neglected and most interesting novelist George Moore. Stevens writes clearly and is most informative in this highly recommended study.
William Baker, The Year's Work in English Studies
* The Year's Work in English Studies *
Table of Contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Author’s Note
- Introduction
- 1 The Victorians and the Bible
- 2 Nineteenth-Century Lives of Jesus
- 3 The Rise of the Fictional Jesus
- 4 The Fifth Gospel of Oscar Wilde
- 5 The Afterlife of Oscar Wilde’s Oral Tales
- 6 A Peculiar Protestant: The Gospels According to George Moore
- 7 George Moore’s Life of Jesus
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
