Adams, Henry, The Education of Henry Adams, Oxford University Press, 1999.

The greatest representative of its genre,Adams' 1906 autobiographical bildungsroman grapples with the themes of the corruption of humanity. In one chapter, "The Dynamo and the Virgin," he compares the figure who unified the Middle Ages, the Virgin Mary, with the technological enthusiasm of the dawn of the twentieth century.Adams fears that modernism will devolve humans into greedy beasts incapable of appreciating those finer elements of civilization—such as art.

Ellman, Richard, "Edwardians and Late Victorians," edited by Richard Ellman, Columbia University Press, 1960. Ellman's volume reveals the differences between the Edwardians and the Victorians. Philosophically, the Edwardians sought to create a more modern view of the world, though it was not modern enough for some.

Forster, E. M., Aspects of the Novel, 1927.

Forster was the first novelist invited to deliver a Cambridge University Clark Lectures...