In this moment of growing anxiety about the environment and the fate of humanity, literature plays, and has always played, an important part in articulating concerns and dynamic new ways of thinking. Locating the first significant moment in the development of this anxiety in the genre fiction of the late 19th and early 20th century, cultural historian Gerry Smyth explores how popular novelists of the period brought together debates surrounding the state of English national identity with their concerns for the impact of the agricultural and industrial revolution on the English environment. Through 16 case studies of fantasy, science fiction, crime and children's stories, this book breaks down novels alongside their cultural and historical contexts in order to show how the relationship between (English) identity and England became a central focus of the popular literary imagination.

Offering an overlooked pre-history that has contributed to the emergence of ecocriticism as we know it today, this book develops new reading methods and discussions surrounding much-loved British texts and ultimately reveals an unlikely but important alternative literary genealogy for modern English literature and environmental cultures. Featuring discussions of classic texts from The Heart of Darkness, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Island of Dr Moreau to Lolly Willows, The Hobbit, The Wind in the Willows and Brave New World, Smyth pulls out such themes as agriculture, industry, technology, empire, class, gender struggles, animal rights, artificial intelligence, the devastation of nature and evolution among many others. A demonstration of the enduring importance of new ways of thinking in the face of the climate crisis, this accessible but creative book shows how English novels were shaped by and negotiated environmental changes felt deeply even a hundred years ago.