- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Greenwood Press; annotated edition edition (30 Mar 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 031326550X
- ISBN-13: 978-0313265501
- Product Dimensions: 2.4 x 1.6 x 0.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,765,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Classic Cult Fiction: A Companion to Popular Cult Literature
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"Highly recommended for all literary history and U.S. history collections."-ARBA 93
Product Description
"Classic Cult Fiction" is a history, analysis, and reference guide to books that have become "bibles" to generations of Europeans and Americans over the past 200 years. Though "canon formation" is an awesome prospect, sure to lead to challenges by scholars and readers alike, author Thomas Whissen identifies his top 50 classic cult books, first presenting an informed interpretation of the phenomenon and its characteristics with examples from different cultures and periods. Cult fiction is shown to be a product of the Romantic movement and a reflection of the persistent romantic temperament in Western civilization. The work offers insights into the mentality of the Golden Age of cult Fiction, the 1960s, by analyzing the cult books that both influenced the age and were influenced by it. The 50 individual works are each discussed relative to time and place, impact, and audience psychology and analyzed in terms of common cult attributes. A chronolgical listing of cult fiction adds a number of titles not chosen for the top fifty. This literary companion argues the case for cult fiction as a distinct genre and offers 50 fresh and thought provoking essays to back up the contention.
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First Sentence
Against Nature (also translated as Against the Grain) is the story of an effete character who turns to artificial pleasures as an escape from life's monotony. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Against Nature (also translated as Against the Grain) is the story of an effete character who turns to artificial pleasures as an escape from life's monotony. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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2 reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Get out your reading list . . .
13 May 2004
Format:Hardcover
The author defines "cult" novels as those that speak "not only to the reader but for him" -- not a bad description. As a college student in the early 1960s, I was swept up (along with everyone else) by the cult authors of the day, especially Burgess, Tolkien, Heinlein, Kesey, Brautigan, and Vonnegut. (I managed to avoid Castenada and Hesse, I'm relieved to say. . . .) All of them are included among the fifty authors profiled and analyzed in this essay collection, though the author apparently whittled his original list down considerably. While I don't agree with all of his observations -- I think Hunter Thompson has long been vastly overrated, for instance -- he's so often right on the money, I found myself jotting down those titles I hadn't read in decades, plus a few I had missed entirely. For an avid reader who is always looking for other people's thoughtful suggestions of what to read, this is a first-rate volume.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Great Deal
27 Jun 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this item because I like cult fiction. The price was very high when I went online to book companies. I went to Amazon and found out the book was over 100 dollars. I checked Amazon's associates and found the same book for under 5 dollars. I bought it immediately. Although used, it looked like new when I got it. Since then I have purchased over 30 books through Amazon. I am very happy with everything I have bought.
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