Dickens and the Children of Empire [Hardcover]

Dickens and the Children of Empire examines the themes of childhood and empire throughout Dickens' oeuvre. The prestigious group of contributors initiate and extend debates on the subjects of post-colonialism, literature of the child and present childhood as an apt metaphor for the colonized subject in Dickens' work.Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Introduction; W.S.Jacobson Spirit and the Allegorical Child: Little Nell's Mortal Aesthetic; J.Bowen Dickens and the Construction of the Child; J.Kincaid Suppressing Narratives: Childhood ad Empire in The Uncommercial Traveller and Great Expectations; G.Smith The Imperial Child: Bella, Our Mutual Friend , and the Victorian Picturesque; M.Baumgarten Dickens and Gold Rush Fever: Colonial Contagion in Household Words; L.Nayder Floating Signifiers of Britishness in the Novels of the Anti-Slave-Trade Squadron; C.Gallagher Dickens and the Native American; K.Flint Nationalism and Violence: America in Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit; R.E.Lougy Girls Underground, Boys Overseas: Some Graveyard Vignettes; C.Robson What the Waves were Always Saying: Dombey and Son and Textual Ripples on an African Shore; M.V.W.Smith Savages and Settlers in Dickens: Reading Multiple Centres; A.Chennells Dickens in Africa: Africanizing Hard Times; G.Matsika Primitive and Wingless: The Colonial Subject as Child; B.Ashcroft Index

'In their many and varied ways, the articles in Dickens and the Children of Empire interrogate modern constructions of childhood and empire, as espoused or subverted in works by writers such as Dickens, and examine the relationship between images of infantilism and imperialism. All of the articles in this diverse and imaginative collection will prove an invaluable resource for any student, researcher, or lecturer interested in Dickens, imperialism, and images of childhood...' - Jonathan Taylor, Loughborough University, MLR

BILL ASHCROFT Lecturer, University of New South Wales, SydneyMURRAY BAUMGARTlc+