"This is the first book-length study of H. R. H.'s African fiction. It revised the image of Rider Haggard (1836-1925) as a mere writer of adventure stories, a brassy propagandist for British imperialism. Professor Monsman places Haggard's imaginative works both in the context of colonial fiction writing and in the framework of subsequent postcolonial debates about history and its representation."--BOOK JACKET.
"H. Rider Haggard on the Imperial Frontier, the first book-length study of H.R.H.'s African fiction, revises the image of Rider Haggard (1856-1925) as a mere writer of adventure stories, a brassy propagandist for British imperialism. Professor Monsman places Haggard's imaginative works both in the context of colonial fiction writing and in the framework of subsequent postcolonial debates about history and its representation. Like Olive Schreiner, Haggard was an Anglo-African writer straddling the moral divide of mixed allegiances--one empathetically African, the other quite English. The context for such Haggard tales as King Solomon's Mines and She was a triad of extraordinary nineteenth-century cultures in conflict--British, Boer, and Zulu. Haggard mined his characters both from the ore of real-life Africa and from the depths of his subconscious, giving expression to feelings of cultural conflict, probing and subverting the dominant economic and social forces of imperialism. Monsman argues that Haggard endorses native religious powers as superior to the European empirical paradigm, celebrates autonomous female figures who defy patriarchal control, and covertly supports racial mixing. These social and political elements are integral to his thrilling story lines charged with an exoticism of lived nightmares and extraordinary ordeals. H. Rider Haggard on the Imperial Frontier will be of interest to readers of imperial history and biography, "lost race" and supernatural literature, tales of terror, and heroic fantasies. The book's unsettling relevance to contemporary issues will engage a wide audience, and the groundbreaking biographical account of Haggard's close contemporary Bertram Mitford in the appendix will add appeal to specialists."--Publisher's website.
In Rider Haggard and the Imperial Occult, Simon Magus explores the occult world of H. Rider Haggard through an analysis of his literary engagement with ancient Egypt, Romanticism and Theosophy.
Aggressive policy, enthusiastic news coverage and sensational novelistic style combined to create a distinctive image of Britain's Empire in late-Victorian print media. The New Journalism, the New Imperialism and the Fiction of Empire, 1870-1900 traces this phenomenon through the work of editors, special correspondents and authors.
This book celebrates the career of the eminent historian of the British Empire John M. MacKenzie, who pioneered the examination of the impact of the Empire on metropolitan culture. It is structured around three areas: the cultural impact of empire, 'Four-Nations' history, and global and transnational perspectives. These essays demonstrate MacKenzie’s influence but also interrogate his legacy for the study of imperial history, not only for Britain and the nations of Britain but also in comparative and transnational context. Written by seventeen historians from around the world, its subjects range from Jumbomania in Victorian Britain to popular imperial fiction, the East India Company, the ironic imperial revivalism of the 1960s, Scotland and Ireland and the empire, to transnational Chartism and Belgian colonialism. The essays are framed by three evaluations of what will be known as 'the MacKenzian moment' in the study of imperialism.
Across Ethiopia and beyond, Sherlock Holmes encounters both the hideous and the divine, ripping asunder the fragile veil separating us from worlds unknown-all while in the company of the renowned Allan Quatermain. The last of Allan Quatermain's true African adventures to appear, The Treasure of the Lake, was published nearly a century ago in 1926. Those who lusted to vicariously accompany Quatermain on new perilous treks into the vast reaches of the "Dark Continent" (as they had done to King Solomon's Mines) had no choice but to remain disappointed. UNTIL NOW! Recently found amongst some obscure papers at Brown University, this new manuscript chronicles a complex and inspired quest headed by Quatermain deep into the earthquake- and volcano-ripped Danakil Desert of Ethiopia in 1872 accompanied by his devoted aide-de-camp Hans and a host of the nineteenth century's most prodigious luminaries, including astronomer Maria Mitchell, volcanologist Axel Lindenbrock, and Gunnery Sergeants Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan. Along the way, this ragtag troop is brutally attacked in the desert by its trophy-hunting denizens, and then they discover a 2,000-year-old lost city. Yet Holmes' and Quatermain’s quest is not merely one of surviving in Ethiopia’s beautiful yet tortuous landscapes; they must confront horror and overcome it. As the tale unfolds, readers will be swallowed by a maelstrom of concepts, relentlessly pulled headlong, descending into a scholarly labyrinth of interwoven writings. In point of fact, Quatermain encounters no less than the very essence of the meaning of life, which he then discounts as a wizard's trick!
Imperial Boredom offers a radical reconsideration of the British Empire during its heyday in the nineteenth century. Challenging the long-established view that the empire was about adventure and excitement, with heroic men and intrepid women eagerly spreading commerce and civilization around the globe, this thoroughly researched, engagingly written, and lavishly illustrated account suggests instead that boredom was central to the experience of empire. Combining individual stories of pain and perseverance with broader analysis, Professor Auerbach considers what it was actually like to sail to Australia, to serve as a soldier in South Africa, or to accompany a colonial official to the hill stations of India. He reveals that for numerous men and women, from explorers to governors, tourists to settlers, the Victorian Empire was dull and disappointing. Drawing on diaries, letters, memoirs, and travelogues, Imperial Boredom demonstrates that all across the empire, men and women found the landscapes monotonous, the physical and psychological distance from home debilitating, the routines of everyday life wearisome, and their work tedious and unfulfilling. The empire s early years may have been about wonder and marvel, but the Victorian Empire was a far less exciting project. Many books about the British Empire focus on what happened; this book concentrates on how people felt.
