Malaria and Victorian fictions of empire

Summary: The impact of malaria on humankind has been profound. Focusing on depictions of this iconic 'disease of empire' in nineteenth-century and postcolonial fiction, Jessica Howell shows that authors such as Charles Dickens, Henry James, H. Rider Haggard, Olive Schreiner and Rudyard Kipling did not simply adopt the discourses of malarial containment and cure offered by colonial medicine. Instead, these authors adapted and rewrote some common associations with malarial images such as swamps, ruins, mosquitoes, blood, and fever. They also made use of the unique potential of fiction by incorporating chronic, cyclical illness, bodily transformation and adaptation within the very structures of their novels. Howell's study also examines the postcolonial literature of Amitav Ghosh and Derek Walcott, arguing that these authors use the multivalent and subversive potential of malaria in order to rewrite the legacies of colonial medicine.

Record details

ISBN: 1108484689
ISBN: 9781108462457
ISBN: 9781108484688
ISBN: 1108586961
ISBN: 9781108586962
ISBN: 1108693229
ISBN: 9781108693226
Physical Description: 1 online resource (x, 238 pages).
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Publisher: Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Introduction -- 1. Nationalism and acute malaria in transatlantic fiction: Charles Dickens and Henry James -- 2. Malaria and the imperial romance: H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines -- 3. Malarial feminisms: Olive Schreiner and the allegories of chronic disease -- 4. The boy doctor of empire: malaria and mobility in Rudyard Kipling's Kim -- 5. Rewriting the bite: the Calcutta chromosome, mosquitoes, and global health politics -- Coda: towards a postcolonial health humanities -- Bibliography -- Index.
Source of Description Note:	Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on September 19, 2019).