Edwardian, strictly
Edwardian, strictly,of the reign of Edward VII , but the term is commonly used (in contrast with ‘Victorian’) of the years 1900 – 14 . H. G. Wells , who stands in a symbolic relation to the Edwardian period as Wilde stood in a symbolic relation to the 1890s, wrote that Queen Victoria sat on England like a great paperweight, and that after her death things blew all over the place. This expresses well the excitement, the new sense of freedom, and the lack of direction, in Wells himself and in Arnold Bennett , Galsworthy , E. M. Forster , and other liberal writers of the period. It was an era of outstanding achievement in the theatre (with G. B. Shaw and Granville-Barker ) and, especially, in the novel, notably in the great works of H. James 's last phase and the radical experiments of Conrad (and his collaborator F. M. Ford ). At the same time strongly traditional themes in the writing of the...
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