Beyond Gold and Diamonds: Genre, the Authorial Informant, and the British South African Novel

Description

Beyond Gold and Diamonds demonstrates the importance of southern Africa to British literature from the 1880s to the 1920s, from the rise of the systematic exploitation of the region's mineral wealth to the aftermath of World War I. It focuses on fiction by the colonial-born Olive Schreiner, southern Africa's first literary celebrity, as well as by H. Rider Haggard, Gertrude Page, and John Buchan, its most influential authorial informants, British authors who spent significant time in the region and wrote about it as insiders. Tracing the ways in which generic innovation enabled these writers to negotiate cultural and political concerns through a uniquely British South African lens, Melissa Free argues that British South African literature constitutes a distinct field, one that overlaps with but also exists apart from both a national South African literary tradition and a tradition of South African literature in English. The various genres that British South African novelists introduced-the New Woman novel, the female colonial romance, the Rhodesian settler romance, and the modern spy thriller-anticipated metropolitan literary developments while consolidating Britain's sense of its own dominion in a time of increasing opposition. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments A Note on Terminology Dutch/Boer/Afrikaner Dutch/the taal/Afrikaans Indigenous Proper Names South Africa/Southern Africa/South African Introduction A Single Frame: Southern Africa, Britain, and the Authorial Informant The Authorial Informant Why British South African Literature? The Fiction of Race Overview Chapter 1 Preterdomesticity and the South African Farm: Women Old and New South African Ties Pairing I: Cousins Pairing II: Sisters Theory over Practice: Lyndall Practice over Theory: Jess Genre and Colonial Domesticity I: Invention and Retention Genre and Colonial Domesticity II: Expansion and Preservation Conclusion Chapter 2 “It Is I Who Have the Power”: The Female Colonial Romance The Presence of Women Female Adventure The Female Colonial Romance Colonial Maturation Recognition Negotiation and Adjudication “Blood Is a Bad Seed to Sow” Unwanted Advances Mystical Feminism Recovery and Loss Conclusion Chapter 3 Colony of Dreadful Delight: Gertrude Page and the Rhodesian Settler Romance Metropole and Colony Playing with Fire “Woman with a Capital W” Conclusion Chapter 4 “There Will Be No More Kings in Africa”: Foreclosing Darkness in Prester John A New Sense of Space Generic Deviation “Excellent Friends” The “Dangerous Spirit” of Ethiopianism Anglo-Eden Conclusion Epilogue Beyond the British South African Novel Part I: Richard Hannay in Britain and Europe Part II: The First Novel in English by a Black South African Notes Works Cited Index