In this Book
- Livingstone's 'lives': A metabiography of a Victorian icon
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: Manchester University Press
summary
David Livingstone, the ‘missionary-explorer’, has attracted more commentary than nearly any other Victorian hero. Beginning in the years following his death, he soon became the subject of a major biographical tradition. Yet out of this extensive discourse, no unified image of Livingstone emerges. Rather, he has been represented in diverse ways and in a variety of socio-political contexts. Until now, no one has explored Livingstone’s posthumous reputation in full. This book meets the challenge. In approaching Livingstone’s complex legacy, it adopts a metabiographical perspective: in other words, this book is a biography of biographies. Rather than trying to uncover the true nature of the subject, metabiography is concerned with the malleability of biographical representation. It does not aim to uncover Livingstone’s ‘real’ identity, but instead asks: what has he been made to mean? Crossing disciplinary boundaries, Livingstone’s 'lives' will interest scholars of imperial history, postcolonialism, life-writing, travel-writing and Victorian studies.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- List of illustrations
- pp. viii-ix
- General editor’s introduction
- pp. x-xii
- Acknowledgements
- pp. xiii-xiv
- 3. Death: lamenting Livingstone
- pp. 69-113
- 4. Empire: imperial afterlives
- pp. 114-177
- 5. Nation: Scotland’s son
- pp. 178-221
- 6. Fiction: laughing at Livingstone?
- pp. 222-271
- 7. Revisionism: sins, psyche, sex
- pp. 272-291
Additional Information
ISBN
9781847799135
Related ISBN(s)
9780719095320, 9781526106797
MARC Record
OCLC
980741801
Pages
320
Launched on MUSE
2017-04-07
Language
English
Open Access
No