Table Of ContentMASCULINITIES IN BRITISH
ADVENTURE FICTION, 1880–1915
For my brother Anthony, for many adventures
Masculinities in British
Adventure Fiction, 1880–1915
JOSEPH A. KESTNER
University of Tulsa, USA
© Joseph A. Kestner 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Joseph A. Kestner has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Kestner, Joseph A.
Masculinities in British adventure fiction, 1880–1915.
1. Adventure stories, English–History and criticism.
2. Masculinity in literature. 3. English fiction–19th century–History and criticism.
4. English fiction–20th century–History and criticism.
I. Title
823’.087’09353’09034–dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kestner, Joseph A.
Masculinities in British adventure fiction, 1880–1915 / Joseph A. Kestner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-6901-2 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7546-9594-3
(ebook) 1. Adventure stories, English—History and criticism. 2. English fiction
—19th century—History and criticism. 3. English fiction—20th century—History
and criticism. 4. Masculinity in literature. 5. Imperialism in literature. I. Title.
PR830.A38K47 2010
823’.087093521—dc22
2009031160
ISBN 9780754669012 (hbk)
ISBN 9780754695943 (ebk)
V
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: Masculinities and Adventure Fiction 1
1 Voyaging 27
2 Mapping 63
3 Invading 99
4 Loving 141
Conclusion 173
Select Bibliography 177
Index 203
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Acknowledgements
This book could not have been written without the cooperation of individuals,
libraries and institutions. The author wishes to express his gratitude for the
assistance rendered by these individuals and institutions.
The author is grateful to the library of the University of New York at Albany for
access to its outstanding periodicals collection. The author is particularly grateful
to Ann Blakely of the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa for exceptional
professional diligence in locating articles and reviews from Victorian periodicals.
The author is grateful to the University of Tulsa for the academic leave which
enabled the completion of this book.
For their advice and support, the author wishes to thank Lynn Alexander,
Thomas Benediktson, Lars Engle, Thomas Horne, Holly Laird, Russell Renfrow,
Robert Spoo, Gordon Taylor, Steadman Upham, Jeff Van Hanken, Sandra Vice,
Joseph Wiesenfarth and Carl Woodring. The author is grateful to Patrick Scott
Belk for his precision, advice and assistance during the preparation of the final
manuscript.
The author wishes to thank Ann Donahue, Senior Editor at Ashgate, for her
stellar professionalism, expertise and support. He also thanks Whitney Feininger,
Assistant Editor at Ashgate, for her scrupulous attention to the manuscript in
preparing it for production.
The author is also grateful for permission to reproduce an image on the jacket
from the film of The Secret Sharer (1973) and thanks the following: Encyclopaedia
Britannica Educational Corporation, the producing company; Larry Yust, producer/
director; Isidore Mankofsky, director of photography; and David Soul, actor.
For her unending loyalty, undying love to Topaz.
Love to Ari for his golden-eyed vigilance.
Anna H. Norberg has been a strong and loving source of support during the
writing of this book.
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Introduction:
Masculinities and Adventure Fiction
In the first chapter of his novel Lord Jim (1900), Joseph Conrad constructs the
narrative to alert the reader about a formative experience of its protagonist: ‘He
could see the big ships departing, the broad-beamed ferries constantly on the move,
the little boats floating far below his feet, with the hazy splendour of the sea in the
distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the world of adventure’ (47).
The mechanism for this ‘hope of adventure’ is then delineated:
On the lower deck in the babel of two hundred voices he would forget himself,
and beforehand live in his mind the sea-life of light literature. He saw himself
saving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in a hurricane, swimming
through a surf with a line; or as a lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked,
walking on uncovered reefs in search of shellfish to stave off starvation. He
confronted savages on tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in
a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men – always an
example of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a hero in a book. (47)
Conrad underscores the crucial importance of adventure literature imprinting codes
of masculinity: rescue, heroism, survival, courage, duty, isolation, voyaging. In
the case of Lord Jim, the young man is unable to live up to this modelling – the
imprinting is inadequate, fantasy superseding actualisation. Joseph Conrad does
acknowledge the crucial role of adventure literature in the formation of masculine
codes. In Conrad, this masculine formation process is a crucial focus of his texts.
However, Conrad indicates that the interrogation of masculine codes is as
important as the processes of imprinting. In the last two decades of the nineteenth
century, Elaine Showalter notes, ‘adventure fiction is thus important training’ (80).
Joseph Bristow (1991) contends that ‘towards the end of the Victorian period, the
type of adventures absorbed outside school would be modified and so make their
way into the classroom’ (27).
In Allan Quatermain (1887), H. Rider Haggard’s protagonist-narrator states
explicitly:
That is what Englishmen are, adventurers to the backbone; and all our magnificent
muster-roll of colonies, each of which will in time become a great nation, testify
to the extraordinary value of the spirit of adventure which at first sight looks like
a mild form of lunacy … . The names of those grand-hearted old adventurers
