Beyond gold and diamonds : genre, the authorial informant, and the British South African novel / Melissa Free.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Free, Melissa, 1969- author.

Series:

SUNY series, studies in the long nineteenth century.

SUNY Series, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

South African fiction (English)--History and criticism.

South African fiction (English).

South African fiction (English)--19th century--History and criticism.

Schreiner, Olive, 1855-1920--History and criticism.

Schreiner, Olive.

Page, Gertrude, 1872-1922--History and criticism.

Page, Gertrude.

Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider), 1856-1925--History and criticism.

Haggard, H. Rider.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (290 pages).

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : State University of New York Press, [2021]

Summary:

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:

Front Matter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

A Note on Terminology

A Single Frame: Southern Africa, Britain, and the Authorial Informant

Preterdomesticity and the South African Farm

“It Is I Who Have the Power”

Colony of Dreadful Delight

“There Will Be No More Kings in Africa”

Beyond the British South African Novel

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438481548

1438481543