Invasion literature

Invasion literature (or the invasion novel) was a historical literary genre most notable between 1871 and the First World War (1914). The genre first became recognizable starting in England in 1871 with the short story The Battle of Dorking, a fictional account of an invasion of England by Germany. The Battle of Dorking was so popular it started a literary craze for stories 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 extremely influential in England in shaping politics, national policies and popular perceptions in the years leading up to the First World War, and still remains a part of popular culture to this day.