Invasion literature is a literary genre that was popular in the period between 1871 and the First World War. The invasion novel was first recognized as a literary genre in the United Kingdom, with the novella The Battle of Dorking, an account of a German invasion of England that aroused national imaginations and anxieties about hypothetical invasions by foreign powers. By 1914 the genre of invasion literature comprised over four hundred novels and stories.
Facts
Place of Origin Notable Example Defining TraitStories of hypothetical invasion by foreign powers that play on national anxieties 1 FAQs
What set off invasion literature and who wrote it afterward?
It followed the 1870 Prussian victory over France and Chesney's The Battle of Dorking.
The spark was the successful 1870 invasion of the Second French Empire by the North German Confederation, led by Prussia, which alarmed George Chesney. His story The Battle of Dorking, published in 1871 in Blackwood's Magazine, was meant to shock readers into awareness of foreign threats, but it instead created a new literary genre. Between 1871 and 1914 hundreds of authors followed, including H. G. Wells with The War of the Worlds in 1897 and William Le Queux, the genre's most prolific writer. Until 1903 most of these works assumed the enemy would be France, and Erskine Childers's novel The Riddle of the Sands then turned attention to Germany.
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Originated In
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Sources
1. Invasion literature (Wikipedia)
In Europe
The invasion novel was first recognised as a literary genre in the UK, with the novella The Battle of Dorking
Opening section
an account of a German invasion of England
Opening paragraph
aroused the national imaginations and anxieties about hypothetical invasions by foreign powers
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