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 . Recently published by Peter Lang: (2008). Mascha Hansen is currently research assistant (PostDoc) at Greifswald University. She has published a monograph on Frances Burney ( , Lang 2004) and several essays on eighteenth-century women writers.

Inhalt: Mascha Hansen: Introduction – Kevin L. Cope: Miracle versus Mayhem: Disturbances of the Future in a Long Eighteenth Century That Thought It Might Be Short – Hermann J. Real: ‘Not in Utopia, Subterranean Fields, Heaven Knows Where’: or, Apocalypse When? – Patrick Müller: Rewriting the Divine-Right Theory for the Whigs: The Political Implications of Shaftesbury’s Treatment of the Doctrine of Futurity in his – Norbert Col: Edmund Burke, Futurity and Providence – Bärbel Czennia: The Futurity of Fame: Eighteenth-Century Paths to Immortality – Allan Ingram: ‘Suppose me dead; and then suppose ...’: Swift in Lively Anticipation – Bill Overton: Lord Hervey, Death and Futurity – Mascha Hansen: Great Expectations? Plans and Planning in Women’s Memoirs – Katherine Aske: ‘He at first sight cou’d each Ones Fortune tell’: Physiognomy and Fortune-Telling in the Early to Mid-Eighteenth Century – Sara Read: ‘Only Kept Up by the Credulous and Ignorant’: Eighteenth-Century Responses to the Ancient Beliefs about Menstrual Blood – Hélène Dachez: ‘Let me collect myself, and pursue my journey’: Generation in Laurence Sterne’s – Michael Szczekalla: The Critique of Utopianism: Gibbon vs. Godwin – Jürgen Klein: ‘The Forty-Five’: British Modernisation and the First Glimpses of the End of the Historical Chronotope – Stefanie Schult: ‘Old lamps for new’: The Rise of the Oriental Tale in the Eighteenth Century and Its Influence on English Literature and Culture – Gerald J. Butler: Our Own Service in the Empire Pope’s Predicts. Inhaltsverzeichnis