Anthem Press Empire and the Animal Body: Violence, Identity and Ecology in Victorian Adventure Fiction (Anthem Nineteenth-Century Series)

‘Empire and the Animal Body: Violence, Identity and Ecology in Victorian Adventure Fiction’ develops recent work in animal studies, eco-criticism and postcolonial studies to reassess the significance of exotic animals in Victorian adventure literature. Depictions of violence against animals were integral to the ideology of adventure literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the evolutionary hierarchies on which such texts relied were complicated by developing environmental sensitivities and reimaginings of human selfhood in relation to animal others. As these texts hankered after increasingly imperilled areas of wilderness, the border between human and animal appeared tense, ambivalent and problematic. Review ‘[Miller] discusses the experience of the hunt as domination of the Other, big game as and economic resource, and the attempts to regulate the disappearance of endangered species, which often resulted in increased control over colonial subjects.’ ―Adela Pinch, ‘Studies in English Literature’ Review ‘An excellent inquiry into the inscription of environmental violence in imperial adventure fiction and its bearings on the genre’s popularity. Lucid, rigorous and assured, it promises to be a foundational text at the juncture of Victorian studies, ecocriticism and colonial history.’ ―Dr Anthony Carrigan, Keele University ‘A compelling and original contribution to its deftly combined fields of study. Miller tracks the fascinatingly unstable division between human/animal identity as it emerges in late Victorian adventure writing, examining its effects on the overlapping rhetoric of racism, speciesism and colonialism at the height of Britain’s empire.’ ―Dr Christine Ferguson, University of Glasgow ‘Using ideas from animal studies and ecocriticism, Miller reveals the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century genre of imperial romance to be a crucial and fascinating site of anxiety about that being called the human. “Empire and the Animal Body” will be essential reading for everyone interested in thinking about how we live in the world: who it is that we have been and who it is that we are today.’ ―Professor Erica Fudge, University of Strathclyde Book Description A critical reassessment of the significance of exotic animals in Victorian adventure literature. About the Author John Miller is currently a lecturer in nineteenth-century literature at the University of Sheffield. He has published widely on animal studies and ecocriticism, particularly in relation to British Empire writing and postcolonial studies. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Empire and the Animal Body Violence, Identity and Ecology in Victorian Adventure Fiction By John Miller Wimbledon Publishing Company Copyright © 2012 John Miller All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-85728-534-8 Contents List of Illustrations, vii, Acknowledgements, ix, Introduction, 1, Chapter One: Otherness and Order, 23, Chapter Two: Scientists and Specimens, 57, Chapter Three: The Animal Within, 97, Chapter Four: Wild Men and Wilderness, 149, Conclusion, 183, Notes, 191, Bibliography, 211, Index, 229, CHAPTER 1 OTHERNESS AND ORDER Imperial Adventures At the outset of his 1980 Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire, Martin Green summarises the political investments of adventure fiction: [T]he adventure tales that formed the light reading of Englishmen for two hundred years and more after Robinson Crusoe were, in fact, the energising myth of English imperialism. They were, collectively, the story England told itself as it went to sleep at night; and, in the form of its dreams, they charged England's will with the energy to go out into the world and explore, conquer and rule. To Green, adventure constitutes a meeting point of literature and politics. Tales of derring-do in foreign lands reflected and promoted Britain's developing colonial interests and burdened the 'light reading of En