Malaria and Victorian Fictions of Empire (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Series Number 114)

"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 make use of the multivalent and subversive potential of malaria in order to rewrite the legacies of colonial medicine"--Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Series page Title page Imprints page Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Malaria: A Disease of Place and Displacement Malaria Narratives Malaria in Literature and Medicine Studies Malaria and Victorian Fictions of Empire Notes 1 Nationalism and Acute Malaria in Transatlantic Fiction Transatlantic Malaria Networks Escaping the Swamp: Dickens in America The “Pestiferous Picturesque”: Henry James’s Malarial Aesthetics Fiction and the Politics of Malignant Malaria Notes 2 Malaria and the Imperial Romance Colonialism and South African Malaria Visions of Malaria in King Solomon’s Mines Parchment, Linen, and Malarial Cachexia Later Ambivalences Notes 3 Malarial Feminisms Self-Diagnosis and the Female Settler’s Body Reading Malaria Allegory Feverish Dreams in Olive Schreiner’s Fiction Malarial Feminisms Notes 4 The Boy Doctor of Empire The Myth of Mastering Malaria Kipling’s Narrative Patterns of Malaria: Introspection and Remission Remission Narratives in Kim Colonial History and Contemporary Illness Narrative Notes 5 Rewriting the Bite The Gothic Puncture Scene Colonial Blood Politics Rewriting the Bite: The Calcutta Chromosome Notes Coda: Toward a Postcolonial Health Humanities Notes Bibliography Index This study focuses on the depictions of malaria in nineteenth-century and postcolonial fiction of writers such as Charles Dickens, Henry James, H. Rider Haggard, and Rudyard Kipling amongst others. It also examines the multivalent and subversive potential of the disease in postcolonial literature of writers such as Amitav Ghosh and Derek Walcott.