Description
Book SynopsisThe collection Imperial Middlebrow, edited by Christoph Ehland and Jana Gohrisch, takes middlebrow studies further in two ways. First, it focuses on the role middlebrow writing played in the popularisation and dissemination of imperial ideology. It combines the interest in the wider function of literature for a colonial society with close scrutiny of the ideological and socio-economic contexts of writers and readers. The essays cover the Girl’s Own Paper, fiction about colonial India including its appearance in Scottish writing, the West Indies, the South Pacific, as well as illustrations of Haggard’s South African imperial romances. Second, the volume proposes using the concept of the middlebrow as an analytical tool to read recent Black and Asian British as well as Nigerian fiction.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures and Tables Notes on Contributors Introduction: Cross-colonial Encounters and Expressions of Power in Middlebrow Literature and Culture, 1890–1940 and the Present Christoph Ehland and Jana Gohrisch A Girl’s Own Empire? Imperialism and the Girl’s Own Paper, 1880 to 1903 Jochen Petzold Picturing Africa: Illustration in the Allan Quatermain Adventure Fictions of H. Rider Haggard Kate Holterhoff “Cramful of snakes and ghosts”: B.M. Croker’s Anglo-Indian Ghost Stories Christoph Singer “An artificial little community which has climbed eight thousand feet out of the world to be cool”: Sara Jeanette Duncan, Simla, and Middlebrow Aesthetics Samuel Caddick Imagining the British West Indies in Middlebrow Fiction Jana Gohrisch “Intimacies of complicity and critique”: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Victoria Cross’s Imperial Fiction Cornelia Wächter Cross-colonial Encounters and Cultural Contestation in Somerset Maugham’s “Rain” Victoria Kuttainen Revising the Romance: Depictions of Biracial Women and Mixed Marriage in Anglo-Indian Popular Fiction Melissa Edmundson “A small seasoning of curry-powder” in A.J. Cronin’s Hatter’s Castle Robert Wirth Sidelining Racism and Discrimination – Recent British Black and Asian Fiction Gesa Stedman Middlebrow 2.0: The Digital Affect and the New Nigerian Novel Hannah Pardey Index
