Underlining (and undermining) the notion of literary merit, this book focuses on noncanonical works and asks: what happens when we look away from modernism?

Seeking an alternative history of British literature from 1890 to 1945, this book reflects on the processes by which canonicity happens by studying less familiar authors, othered by genre, gender and form. This book deliberately looks away from the British modernist canon of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, bringing into sharp relief the problematic nature of discussions about literary merit.

Engaging with topics such as politics, nation and identity in bestsellers, work straddling art and literature, the complex relationships between conservatism and progressive movements such as suffragism, and the importance of popular science writing, in authors such as Stella Benson, Dorothy Edwards, Violet Hunt and Hugh Walpole, it brings to bear valuable new perspectives on the cultural history of this period.