'Autobiografiction': Problems with autobiographical fictions and fictionalautobiographies. Mark Rutherford's 'Autobiography' and 'Deliverance', and others

Starting from the epistemological and generic question as to how first read ers of William Hale White/Mark Rutherford's Autobiography and Deliverance c ould decide whether what they were reading was intended as autobiography or as fiction (however autobiographical), various possible factual and fictio nal earlier models for Rutherford are discussed (Cowper and W.D. Arnold as well as J.S. Mill and J.A. Froude). This is as a prelude to recontextualizi ng Rutherford alongside works by A.C. Benson, George Gissing and Edmund Gos se largely in the light provided by the revealingly titled and remarkably p erceptive 'Autobiografiction' (1906, Stephen Reynolds), which identifies a particularly modern form: a combination of 'what we may believe to be genui ne spiritual experiences' with 'a more or less fictitious but very credible autobiography.'