The Long Eighteenth

just doesn’t happen very often: Verlyn Klinkenborg has written a piece for the New York Times that connects the eighteenth century with speculative fiction. See “When Doris Lessing Meets Lady Mary Wortley Montagu” (Dec. 8/07) for an interesting read about the ways in which we tend to position writers from the past, and how re-imagining them can offer new insights. The wry Montagu is particularly suitable for this somewhat whimsical treatment, while conversely being enough of a heavyweight to survive a comparison with Lessing.

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