Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 Unsettled Status in Australian Settler Novels
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The genteel society Vidal depicts is composed primarily of former tradesmen and shabby gentry from England who have managed to increase their fortunes in Australia and aspire to gentility, along with the convict or former convict servants who work for them and serve as signs of that gentility. A key aspect of Trollope's Harry Heathcote is that, as we have seen, it includes the reconciliation of a genteel squatter with a free-selector, albeit an exceptionally gentlemanly one. The squatter novels may well have contributed to this process of presenting white Australians, especially their leaders, as positive and capable figures in the English imagination. It is thus reasonable to argue that squatter novels such as Trollope's Harry Heathcote and Vidal's Bengala were part of the cultural work of creating a united Australian gentry that in turn provided both political and moral leadership for white Australians generally.'

Source: Abstract.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Victorian Settler Narratives : Emigrants, Cosmopolitans and Returnees in Nineteenth-Century Literature Tamara S. Wagner (editor), London : Routledge , 2011 24471337 2011 anthology criticism

    'This edited collection from a distinguished group of contributors explores a range of topics including literature as imperalist propaganda, the representation of the colonies in British literature, the emergence of literary culture in the colonies and the creation of new gender roles such as "girl Crusoes" in works of fiction.'

    Source: Publisher's blurb.

    London : Routledge , 2011
    pg. 23-40
Last amended 11 May 2022 16:06:51
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