What did eighteenth-century men and women think about when they contemplated the future? What was hidden in the «dark bosom of futurity», as Richardson’s Pamela calls it? Do all types of literature that supply a critique of the present conjure up an idealized past or a vision of a better future? Predictions and prophecies – not only astrological but also political ones, utopian models, theological concepts like predestination, progress in the sciences, and, last but not least, life-after-death, both in the form of secular fame and the immortal soul, are among the topics addressed by the essays collected in this volume.

Jürgen Klein, Greifswald University (Germany), is Emeritus Chair of English Literature and British Intellectual and Cultural History. Publications in the fields: English and comparative literature, English and European intellectual history, literary theory. Editor of Flandziu: Halbjahresschrift für Literatur der Moderne. Recently published by Peter Lang: England und der Kontinent (2008). Mascha Hansen is currently research assistant (PostDoc) at Greifswald University. She has published a monograph on Frances Burney (Frances Burney and the Female Bildungsroman, Lang 2004) and several essays on eighteenth-century women writers.

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