Elizabeth L.Elizabeth Throesch BEFORE ‘This is among the most innovative studies of the relationships between literature and science, yielding wholly fresh understandings of modernist BEFORE EINSTEIN culture while its attention to the neglected figure of Hinton marks a major advance in scholarship.’ E INSTEIN INSTEIN —Ian F. A. Bell, Professor of American Literature, School of Humanities, The Fourth Dimension in Keele University, UK ‘Before Einstein nicely consolidates and extends scholarly discussion on Fin-de-Siècle Literature the spatial fourth dimension as it moves through physics, mathematics, literature and art. The study presents a compelling historical treatment of one of the most fascinating chapters of Anglo-American aesthetics at the and Culture turn of the twentieth century.’ —Bruce Clarke, Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Literature and Science, Texas Tech University, USA ringing together previous scholarship in the field of nineteenth- century literature and science and greatly expanding upon it, B Before Einstein offers the first book-length study of not only the scientific and cultural context of the spatial fourth dimension, but also the literary value of four-dimensional theory. In addition to providing close critical analysis of Charles Howard Hinton’s Scientific Romances, Before Einstein examines the work of H. G. Wells, Henry James and William James through the lens of four-dimensional theory. Truly interdisciplinary in scope, Before Einstein breaks new ground by offering an extensive analysis of four-dimensional theory’s place in the shared history of Modernism. Elizabeth L. Throesch, associate professor at the Community College of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, received her PhD from the University of Leeds, UK, in 2007. She has published articles and book chapters on Lewis Carroll, Herbert Spencer and Charles Howard Hinton, among others. The Anthem Nineteenth-Century Series incorporates a broad range of titles within the fields of literature and culture, comprising an excellent collection of interdisciplinary academic texts. The series aims to promote the most challenging and original work being undertaken in the field, and encourages an approach that fosters connections between areas including history, science, religion and literary theory. Cover image: Daniela Bertol, Wall Blossom1: Semicircular Expansion, trompe-l’œil collage, 1992 www.anthempress.com Elizabeth L. Throesch i Before Einstein ii ANTHEM NINETEENTH- CENTURY SERIES The Anthem Nineteenth- Century Series incorporates a broad range of titles within the fi elds of literature and culture, comprising an excellent collection of interdisciplinary academic texts. The series aims to promote the most challenging and original work being undertaken in the fi eld, and encourages an approach that fosters connections between areas including history, science, religion and literary theory. Our titles have earned an excellent reputation for the originality and rigour of their scholarship, and our commitment to high- quality production. Series Editor Robert Douglas- Fairhurst – University of Oxford, UK Editorial Board Dinah Birch – University of Liverpool, UK Kirstie Blair – University of Stirling, UK Archie Burnett – Boston University, USA Christopher Decker – University of Nevada, USA Heather Glen – University of Cambridge, UK Linda K. Hughes – Texas Christian University, USA Simon J. James – Durham University, UK Angela Leighton – University of Cambridge, UK Jo McDonagh – King’s College London, UK Michael O’Neill – Durham University, UK Seamus Perry – University of Oxford, UK Clare Pettitt – King’s College London, UK Adrian Poole – University of Cambridge, UK Jan- Melissa Schramm – University of Cambridge, UK iii Before Einstein The Fourth Dimension in Fin- de- Siècle Literature and Culture Elizabeth L. Throesch iv Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com This edition fi rst published in UK and USA 2017 by ANTHEM PRESS 75– 76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA Copyright © Elizabeth L. Throesch 2017 The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 78308- 623- 8 (Hbk) ISBN- 10: 1- 78308- 623- 8 (Hbk) This title is also available as an e- book. v CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 Part I READING THE FOURTH DIMENSION Chapter One Imagining ‘Something Perfectly New’: Problems of Language, Conception and Perception 19 Chapter Two Constructing the Fourth Dimension: The First Series of the Scientifi c Romances 4 5 Chapter Three The Four- Dimensional Self: Personal, Political and Untimely 75 Part II READING THROUGH THE FOURTH DIMENSION Chapter Four Four- Dimensional Consciousness: The Correspondence between William James and Charles Howard Hinton 107 Chapter Five H. G. Wells’s Four- Dimensional Literary Aesthetic 133 Chapter Six Exceeding ‘the Trap of the Refl exive’: Henry James’s Dimensions of Consciousness 167 Afterword 195 Bibliography 199 Index 209 vi vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My work on this book would not have been possible without support from many quar- ters. I fi rst began researching and writing on the topic of the fourth dimension when I was a doctoral candidate at the University of Leeds, and I am thankful to the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme and the School of English for their assistance in funding my postgraduate work. The archival research undertaken for the book was partly funded by the Brotherton Library Scholarship Fund. Additional support in the form of teaching relief was provided by York St John University. While I was at the University of Leeds, I benefi ted from thoughtful and constructive criticism from a number of scholars. I am thankful for the support of the community of scholars at Leeds, particularly Richard Salmon and Bridget Bennett, as well as then members of the postgraduate community who read and commented on my work at various stages: Catherine Bates, Basil Chiasson, Tara Deshpande, Alberto Fernández Carbajal, Daniel Hannah, Caroline Herbert, Kaley Kramer, Jeff rey Orr, Gillian Roberts, Jennifer Sarha and Abigail Ward. In the early days of my doctoral research, Robin Le Poidevin generously agreed to discuss the philosophy of space and time with me, and my external examiner, Ian F. A. Bell, off ered friendly advice and support during the examination process and beyond. While I was on research and conference trips, Linda Dalrymple Henderson met with me to share scholarship on Hinton and discuss the fourth dimension. Daniela Bertol kindly granted permission for her art to appear on the cover of this book. I am immensely grateful to Nasser Hussain and Bonnie Latimer, who heroically read, and provided detailed critiques of, the fi rst full draft of this book. Any errors or misreadings are, of course, entirely my own. Finally, while this work would not have been possible without the moral support of those mentioned above as well as countless others in Leeds, York, Portsmouth, Arkansas, Austin, Pittsburgh and beyond, I am most grateful to Carrie Kifer, whose humour, love and patience make everything possible. viii 1 INTRODUCTION At the conclusion of Henry James’s 1896 novel The Spoils of Poynton , the protagonist Fleda Vetch struggles to articulate her sense of the ‘vivid presence of the artist’s idea’ she perceives in the maiden- aunt’s house at Ricks: ‘It’s a kind of fourth dimension. It’s a presence, a perfume, a touch. It’s a soul, a story, a life. There’s ever so much more here than you and I!’ 1 Her ability to perceive this presence makes her ‘the one who knew the most’, the central consciousness of this novel whose understanding most closely approaches James’s own. 2 In his preface to the New York edition of The Spoils of Poynton , James explained that Fleda’s ‘ingratiating stroke’ for him was that ‘she would under- stand’. 3 Fleda refers to this understanding as ‘a kind of fourth dimension’, a particular choice of phrase that has not gone unnoticed in literary criticism.4 This is not Einstein’s fourth dimension of space- time; Einstein’s special theory of relativity was fi rst published in 1905, and his general theory came six years later. In fact, Einstein’s ideas did not begin to reach popular audiences until after their confi rmation during the solar eclipse of 1919. To which fourth dimension does Fleda refer then, and how does an understanding of this idea contribute to our understanding of this text and others from the same period? This book provides an answer to these questions by exploring the discourse of hyper- space philosophy and its position within the network of ‘new’ ideas at the end of the nineteenth century, before the rise of Einstein’s popularity in the 1920s. Hyperspace philosophy grew out of the concept of a fourth spatial dimension, an idea that became increasingly debated amongst mathematicians, physicists and philosophers during the 1870s and 1880s in Britain and on the continent, as well as in the United States. English mathematician and hyperspace philosopher Charles Howard Hinton was the chief pop- ularizer of the fourth dimension in Europe and North America and, from 1880 until his death in 1907, he published a number of literary, philosophical and mathematical texts on the subject. The infl uence of these texts, many of which were published as a series under the title of Scientifi c Romances , ranged surprisingly wide. The present study off ers an extended examination of Hinton’s work and – crucially – the infl uence of his ideas on contemporary writers and thinkers.