Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-272) and index
Contemporary fiction, postimperial conditions : romances of the archive -- Romances of the archive : identifying characteristics : A.S. Byatt and Julian Barnes -- Wellsprings : Edmund Spenser, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, Josephine Tey, Umberto Eco -- History or heritage? : Penelope Lively, Barry Unsworth, Peter Ackroyd -- Time magic and the counterfactual imagination : Kingsley Amis, Lindsay Clarke, Lawrence Norfolk, Nigel Williams -- Custody of the truth : P.D. James, Robert Harris, Peter Dickinson, Margaret Drabble -- Envisioning the past : Alan Hollinghurst, Adam Mars-Jones, Robert Goddard, Stevie Davies -- Epilogue : postcolonial rejoinders : Derek Walcott, Keri Hulme, Amitav Ghosh, Bharati Mukherjee