With its new innovations in the visual arts, cinema and photography as well as the sciences of memory and perception, the early twentieth century saw a crisis in the relationship between what was seen and what was known. Literary Impressionism charts that Modernist crisis of vision and the way that literary impressionists such as Dorothy Richardson, Ford Madox Ford, H.D., and May Sinclair used new concepts of memory in order to bridge the gap between perception and representation.

Exploring the fiction of these four major writers as well as their journalism, manifesto writings, letters and diaries from the archives, Rebecca Bowler charts the progression of modernism's literary aesthetics and the changing role of memory within it.

1. Literary Impressionism: Subjective and Objective Visions in Dorothy Richardson and Ford Madox Ford
i. 'The Thing Perceived and Herself Perceiving': The Double Impression
ii. Representing the Unrepresentable I: Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End
iii. Representing the Unrepresentable II: Dorothy Richardson's 'Golden Light'
2. Visual Metaphors: Dorothy Richardson and H.D.
i. Paintings, Photographs and Sculptural Form in Dorothy Richardson and H.D.
ii. Weaving Cinematic Form: H.D. and Dorothy Richardson
3. Coming to Writing: Dorothy Richardson and May Sinclair
4. Memory and Vision
Bibliography
Index