Fiction and Story of the Russian Revolution

Abstract

This chapter gives an account of a selection of the earliest fiction and memoirs to come out of the British encounter with the Russian Revolution, including work by Douglas Goldring, Harold Williams, William Gerhardie, Hugh Walpole, W.L. Blennerhassett, Ernest John Harrison, and Oliver Baldwin. Of these, it is Gerhardie who made the most of his experience as a British army officer and of his polyglot talents in forming his novel Futility, while others veer between adventure, conspiracy, propaganda and fantasy.