Overview

Oceania, or the South Pacific, loomed large in the Victorian popular imagination. It was a world that interested the Victorians for many reasons, all of which suggested to them that everything was possible there. This collection of essays focuses on Oceania’s impact on Victorian culture, most notably travel writing, photography, international exhibitions, literature, and the world of children. Each of these had significant impact. The literature discussed affected mainly the middle and upper classes, while exhibitions and photography reached down into the working classes, as did missionary presentations. The experience of children was central to the Pacific’s effects, as youthful encounters at exhibitions, chapel, home, or school formed lifelong impressions and experience. It would be difficult to fully understand the Victorians as they understood themselves without considering their engagement with Oceania. While the contributions of India and Africa to the nineteenth-century imagination have been well-documented, examinations of the contributions of Oceania have remained on the periphery of Victorian studies. Oceania and the Victorian Imagination contributes significantly to our discussion of the non-peripheral place of Oceania in Victorian culture.

Full Product Details

9781138249417

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Does Oceania and the Victorian Imagination meet the readers' expectaA tions? Indeed it does, offering a wealth of data, detailed information and cross-references that will aid further study. There is a select bibliography and a very useful, detailed index. This book will also encourage the reader to purchase and read more of the novels mentioned ... This book cannot be ignored for future discussions regardA ing the history of contact between Europeans and Pacific Islanders.' New Zealand and Pacific Studies 'Eclectic and thought-provoking ... While this collection focuses on the concerns of literature and visual arts specialists, it raises issues also of interest to historians and gives a broad perspective on late 20th-century Western views of the Pacific.' Journal of Pacific History

Author Information

Richard D. Fulton is Vice Chancellor at the University of Hawai'i-Windward Community College, USA, and Peter H. Hoffenberg is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa, USA.

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