Settler Colonialism in Victorian Literature: Economics and Political Identity in the Networks of Empire

Description

How did the emigration of nineteenth-century Britons to colonies of settlement shape Victorian literature? Philip Steer uncovers productive networks of writers and texts spanning Britain, Australia, and New Zealand to argue that the novel and political economy found common colonial ground over questions of British identity. Each chapter highlights the conceptual challenges to the nature of 'Britishness' posed by colonial events, from the gold rushes to invasion scares, and traces the literary aftershocks in familiar genres such as the bildungsroman and the utopia. Alongside lesser-known colonial writers such as Catherine Spence and Julius Vogel, British novelists from Dickens to Trollope are also put in a new light by this fresh approach that places Victorian studies in a colonial perspective. Bringing together literary formalism and British World history, Settler Colonialism in Victorian Literature describes how what it meant to be 'British' was re-imagined in an increasingly globalized world. Cover Half-title Series information Title page Copyright information Dedication Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: Settler Colonialism and Metropolitan Culture British Identity, Literature, and the Victorian Settler Empire Stadial Theory, Settlement, and Literary Form Metropolitan Culture and the Networks of Empire Victorian Literature and the Victorian Settler Empire Chapter 1 The Transportable Pip: Liberal Character, Territory, and the Settled Subject Stadial Theory and Systematic Colonization: A Letter from Sydney The Romance and the Problem of Mobility: Arabin Extending the Borders of Britishness: The Caxtons and David Copperfield Character in the Penal Colony: The Mark System Charles Dickens and the Mark System: Urania Cottage, or the Home for Homeless Women The Bildungsroman, the Mark System, and Metropolitan Character: Great Expectations Metropolitan Forms and the Networks of Empire Chapter 2 Gold and Greater Britain: The Australian Gold Rushes, Unsettled Desire, and the Global British Subject Settled Society and the Problem of the Gold Rushes: Clara Morison The Aesthetics and Economics of Extraction: Land, Labour, and Gold Unsettled Desire in Political Economy: Plutology Colonial Gold and the Form of Metropolitan Economics: Jevons's Theory of Political Economy Colonial Gold and the Form of the Metropolitan Novel: John Caldigate Bridging Metropolitan and Colonial Space Chapter 3 Speculative Utopianism: Colonial Progress, Debt, and Greater Britain Culture, Investment, and Utopia: A First Year in Canterbury Settlement and Erewhon Borrowing on British Character: New Zealand's Debt Metropolitan Sovereignty and Settler Dystopia: The Fixed Period Speculative Utopianism and Geopolitics: Anno Domini 2000 and Decline and Fall of the British Empire Chapter 4 Manning the Imperial Outpost: The Invasion Novel, Geopolitics, and the Borders of Britishness The Invasion Novel in the Settler Colony: From The Battle of Dorking to The Invasion Maori Resistance and Settler Masculinity: New Zealand in the Next Great War Indigenized British Character in Australia: The Yellow Wave The Settler Soldier in South Africa Metropolitan Territory and Colonial Subjectivity: The Riddle of the Sands Gallipoli and the Surplus Value of the Settler Colony Conclusion Bibliography Index