Victorian Quest Romance: Stevenson, Haggard, Kipling, and Conan Doyle

Victorian Quest Romance: Stevenson, Haggard, Kipling, and Conan Doyle
ISBN-10
074630904X
ISBN-13
9780746309049
Category
Literary Criticism
Pages
93
Language
English
Published
1998
Publisher
Writers and Their Work (Paperb
Author
Robert Fraser

Description

Late Victorian quest romance has recently attracted renewed attention from critics. Much of this interest has centred on its politics of gender, and its vision of Empire. This book prefers to view the genre in the light of debates within the then nascent sciences of Anthropology and Archaeology. Starting with a discussion of the nature of romance, it goes on to interpret the romances of Stevenson, Haggard, Kipling and Conan Doyle as encounters with lost or buried pasts. By describing such encounters with remote places and times, so it argues, these authors were asking their readers disconcerting questions about humankind, and about their own culture's institutions and beliefs. The book ends by considering the implications of such a view for the whole colonial enterprize.

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