Before Einstein

Before Albert Einstein proposed the concept of four-dimensional spacetime, late Victorian scientists, radical philosophers and writers were discussing the possibility of a different kind of fourth dimension. 'Before Einstein' offers the first book-length examination of the impact of pre-Relativity four-dimensional theory on literature and culture at the turn of the twentieth century.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I:Reading the Fourth Dimension; 1. Imagining 'Something Perfectly New': Problems of Language, Conception and Perception; 2. Constructing the Fourth Dimension: the First Series of the Scientific Romances; 3. The Four-Dimensional Self: Personal, Political and Untimely; Part II:Reading Through the Fourth Dimension; 4. Four-Dimensional Consciousness: the Correspondence between William James and Charles Howard Hinton; 5. H. G. Wells's Four-Dimensional Literary Aesthetic; 6. Exceeding 'the Trap of the Reflexive': Henry James's Dimensions of Consciousness; Afterword; Bibliography; Index.