Victorian coral islands of empire, mission, and the boys' adventure novel / Michelle Elleray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elleray, Michelle Dawne, 1967- author.

Series:

Ashgate studies in childhood, 1700 to the present

Studies in childhood, 1700 to the present

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Children's stories, English--History and criticism.

Children's stories, English.

Adventure stories, English--History and criticism.

Adventure stories, English.

Islands of the Pacific--In literature.

Islands of the Pacific.

Children in literature.

Missionaries in literature.

Imperialism in literature.

National characteristics, English, in literature.

English fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Literature.

Pacific Ocean--Islands of the Pacific.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

ix, 229 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Routledge, 2020.

Summary:

"Attending to the mid-Victorian boys' adventure novel and its connections with missionary culture, Michelle Elleray investigates how empire was conveyed to Victorian children in popular forms, with a focus on the South Pacific as a key location of adventure tales and missionary efforts. The volume draws on an evangelical narrative about the formation of coral islands to demonstrate that missionary investments in the socially marginal (the young, the working class, the racial other) generated new forms of agency that are legible in the mid-Victorian boys' adventure novel, even as that agency was subordinated to Christian values identified with the British middle class. Situating novels by Frederick Marryat, R. M. Ballantyne and W. H. G. Kingston in the periodical culture of the missionary enterprise, this volume newly historicizes British children's textual interactions with the South Pacific and its peoples. Although the mid-Victorian authors examined here portray British presence in imperial spaces as a moral imperative, our understanding of the "adventurer" is transformed from the plucky explorer to the cynical mercenary through Robert Louis Stevenson, who provides a late-nineteenth-century critique of the imperial and missionary assumptions that subtended the mid-Victorian boys' adventure novel of his youth"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

1. The Juvenile Missionary Magazine: Agency and Discipline

2. Masterman Ready's Grave: Deliverance and the Sailor

3. The Coral Island: Savagery, Manliness and Faith

4. Slavery in the Pacific: "Do Right," or, "That's No Business of Mine"

5. The Ebb-Tide: Seeking Pearls.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Elleray, Michelle Dawne, 1967- , Victorian coral islands of empire, mission, and the boys' adventure novel 1.

ISBN:

9780367235505

0367235501

OCLC:

1135091906