Invasion literature

Invasion literature (or the invasion novel) is a literary genre most notable between 1871 and the First World War (1914) but still practised to this day. The genre first became recognizable starting in Britain in 1871 with The Battle of Dorking, a fictional account of an invasion of England by Germany. This short story was so popular it started a literary craze for tales that aroused imaginations and anxieties about hypothetical invasions by foreign powers, and by 1914 the genre had amassed a corpus of over 400 books, many best-sellers, and a world-wide audience. The genre was influential in Britain in shaping politics, national policies and popular perceptions in the years leading up to the First World War, and remains a part of popular culture to this day. Several of the books were written by or ghostwritten for military officers and experts of the day who believed that the nation would be saved if the particular tactic that they favoured was or would be adopted.

Nearly a century before the invasion literature genre became a true popular phenomenon after the publication of The Battle of Dorking in the 1870s, a mini-boom of invasion stories appeared soon after the French developed the hot-air balloon. Poems and plays that centred on armies of balloons invading England could be found in France, and even America. However, it was not until the Prussians used advanced technologies such as breech-loading artillery and railroads to defeat the French in the 1870 War that the fear of invasion by a technologically superior enemy became more realistic.

The Battle of Dorking (1871) by George Tomkyns Chesney first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, a respected Victorian political journal read by important British politicians. This short story describes the invasion of England by an unnamed enemy (who happen to speak German), in which the narrator and 1,000 citizens defend the small English town of Dorking, with no supplies or news of outside events. The story then moves forward in time 50 years and England is still devastated.

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