Gothic Invasions: Imperialism, War and Fin-de-Siècle Popular Fiction

Gothic Literary Studies

by Ailise Bulfin

What do tales of stalking vampires, restless Egyptian mummies, foreign master criminals, barbarian Eastern hordes and stomping Prussian soldiers have in common? As Gothic Invasions explains, they may all be seen as instances of invasion fiction, a paranoid fin-de-siècle popular literary phenomenon that responded to prevalent societal fears of the invasion of Britain by an array of hostile foreign forces in the period before the First World War. Gothic Invasions traces the roots of invasion anxiety to concerns about the downside of Britain’s continuing imperial expansion: fears of growing inter-European rivalry and colonial wars and rebellion. It explores how these fears circulated across the British empire and were expressed in fictional narratives drawing strongly upon and reciprocally transforming the conventions and themes of gothic writing. Gothic Invasions enhances our understanding of an aspect of the interchange between popular culture and politics at this crucial historical juncture, and demonstrates the instrumentality of the ever-versatile and politically-charged gothic mode in this process.
 

Genres: Academic, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2018

Reviews

[Maja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did not have time to read it all but so so so interesting! For my essay I was writing about gender politics in She by H. Rider Haggard. It was particularly interesting to read about literary mummies and Britain's relationship with Egypt:
“the typical mummy of Victorian and Edwardian fiction is a woman […] who perfectly preserved in her youthful beauty, strongly attracts the libidinous attention of modern British men” and thus the drawing of: “a plausible analogy between the female mummy as an alluring, veiled, oriental woman representative of Egypt and the status of occupied Egypt as an unofficial or ‘veiled’ British protectorate”.

[Mir]

Based on the blurb this sounds a rehash of ideas well established in academic thought, but I'll have a look.

[Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

GOTHIC INVASIONS is an excellent academic study of, as the title suggests, Gothic invasion literature in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era. I've long been a fan of the Gothic Literary Studies series from the University of Wales Press and Bulfin's book is the finest I've read yet. It's fast-paced, extremely erudite, wide-ranging and argued in a confident and assured manner that makes it a delight to read. I'm a huge fan of the fin-de-siecle and Bulfin's book does a superb job of bringing the era, with all of its wonders and fears, to light.

Despite the familiarity of many of the texts discussed here, they're analysed in a fresh way that makes this seem less a rehash of well-worn ideas and more a timely exploration of crucial literature done in an involved and clear-headed way. We begin with DRACULA and THE BEETLE bringing threat to Britain before moving on to Egyptian curses, Guy Boothby's master criminals, the unfortunate Yellow Peril craze that swept the country, and finally the frequently-told stories of German invasion. There's a huge contingent of authors featured here, many of whom deserve further study in their own right, and a real evocation of a volatile era in which height-of-Empire nationalism provided authors of the period with plentiful material for their Gothic works.

[JP Conroy]

This cover is amazing, really intriguing image of the waking Asian dragon of the 'yellow peril'. Looking forward to reading it.