Critical Acts of Imperialist Criticism

Arguing that "imperialism was more than a set of economic, political, and military phenomena" (vii), Imperialism and Juvenile Literature sees juvenile literature as a "reflector of the dominant ideas of an age" (vii). The essays in this collection examine a wide range of topics involving the connection between juvenile literature and the dissemination of imperialist ideas. A few examples will provide a sense of the scope of the volume: Patrick Dunae's essay offers us a general sociological background of nineteenth-century children's literature; Martin Green explores a single aspect of that background, showing how the Robinson Crusoe myth was appropriated for nineteenth-century imperialist ends. Jeffrey Richards discusses class and racial issues in G. A. Henty's African novels for children, Denis Butts considers pilots as imperialists in turn-of-the-century flying stories for boys, and J. S. Bratton surveys the girls' fiction that appeared between 1900 and 1930.

Patrick Dunae's opening essay, "New Grub Street for Boys," shows the "social, economic and technological" (43) forces at work in the relationship between imperialism and juvenile literature. Dunae outlines how "boys' literature during the New Imperialism was an industry" (13), an industry that grew out of a broad range of social, psychological, and economic conditions such as "the Victorians' discovery of adolescence, technological advances, and educational reforms" (13). According to Dunae, these discoveries opened up the terrain of the domestic market for writers and provided them with the kinds of ideologically discursive spaces in which to explore and to "maximize their production and profit" (32). For writers such as Dr. Gordon Stables, Robert Leighton, G. A. Henty, and many others who produced literary texts according to tight production schedules, "theirs was a business" (32). Dunae's indefatigable research and presentation of market-oriented statistics about publishing-house contracts and national and international sales show how "empire was merely a vehicle for [writers to] advanc[e] their trade" (13). Dunae's essay convincingly demonstrates how writers of juvenile literature consciously produced ideological texts that disseminated sound imperialist values. Reminding us how profit feeds ideology (and vice versa) and how writers often knowingly plunder culture to satisfy the demands of the publishing houses to which they contract themselves, Dunae's essay shows that nineteenth-century juvenile literature was never disinterested.

Other well-researched essays in this collection further explore, provocatively and informatively, the ways in which juvenile literature reflected imperialist ideas. For example, Stuart Hannabuss's "Ballantyne's Message of Empire" takes as axiomatic the problematic statement that "social issues . . . characterise much children's writing in previous ages" (54). Hannabuss argues that "it is useful to see . . . fictions as touchstones for their age, as lenses through which we can peer and see . . . the stances which the writers adopted" (54). He discusses such a stance in Ballantyne's "unoriginal [yet] large output of books [that] mediated many powerful ideals about heroism and Christian courage through stories like The Coral Island (1858) and The Gorilla Hunters (1861)" (54-55). Hannabuss's balanced essay also points out, however, Ballantyne's ambivalence toward the use of his fictional characters and settings for imperialist ends. For example, Hannabuss draws a credible portrait of Ballantyne as a writer who, caught in the "pervasive cross-currents of his age" (58) by attempting to deal in fiction with "manliness . . . faith and empire" (58), "had an eye for productive themes [of which] slavery and missions were two" (60), yet nonetheless refused to depict the savage as a mere "fictional device" (58). In a sense, Hannabuss's representation of Ballantyne's ambivalence serves as a corrective to Dunae's essay: nineteenth-century writers of juvenile fiction made profits—but often with some reservations.

Denis Butts's brief "Imperialists of the Air-flying Stories: 1900-1950" discusses the formulaic plots used by W. E. Johns, Major T. Gorman, Jack Heming, and others to show pilots as the embodiment of empire values: heroism, manliness, bravery. Butts argues that the flying stories validate the kinds of technological developments necessary for the global dissemination of imperial values. However...