ABSTRACT This introduction examines the intellectual, political, economic, and social context to the reception of Robert Owen’s ideas, and Owenism more generally, in Continental Europe. The introduction describes how Owen’s ideas attracted significant interest in the years following the Napoleonic Wars, particularly in France, and discusses how the French reception of his ideas served as a filter and medium through which his ideas were disseminated throughout Continental Europe. The article describes the individual contributions to this special issue and traces the (...) story of how Owen’s ideas never attracted in Continental Europe the widespread interest they enjoyed in Britain, Ireland, or America. (shrink)

During the long eighteenth century, boundaries between theology and natural philosophy, between imaginary and factual travel narratives, between fiction and social commentary, were far more fluid than they are today. To explore these relationships, this paper links Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—a book often hailed as the first science fiction novel—to two earlier works which are now less well known: Edmond Halley’s article about terrestrial magnetism, in which he suggested that God had created inhabited illuminated cavities inside the earth; and a satirical (...) fantasy voyage written by the Danish author Ludvig Holberg, but published anonymously as Niels Klim’s journey to the underground and immediately translated into many languages. Attention is focussed on how the ambiguous presentation of these and other texts blurs any straightforward classification of genres. The aim of examining these writers together is not to search for direct mappings from one project to another, but instead to introduce Holberg’s unfamiliar yet important book and also to cast new light on Frankenstein, one of England’s most famous works of literature.Keywords: Edmond halley; Ludvig holberg; Frankenstein; Plurality of worlds; Science fiction; Magnetism. (shrink)