Rereading the imperial romance

"This book examines literary romance as a vehicle for the ideological contradictions of British imperialism in South Africa. Chrisman draws upon postcolonial theory and cultural materialism to discuss the imperialist Rider Haggard's fictional accounts of mining in King Solomon's Mines and Zulu history in Nada the Lily, examining these novels as fraught responses to the introduction of capitalist modernity. She goes on to analyse the counter-narratives of metropolitan and African resistance of feminist Olive Schreiner and black nationalist Sol Plaatje. Exploring Schreiner's much-neglected Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, Chrisman situates this book in relation to the violent creation of 'Rhodesia', the 1896-7 Shona uprisings, and contemporary criticism of Cecil Rhodes." "Chrisman's book demonstrates how South Africa played an important if now overlooked role in British imperial culture, and shows the impact of capitalism itself in the making of racial, gender and national identities. This book makes an original contribution to studies of Victorian literature of empire; South African literary history; African studies; black nationalism; and the literature of resistance."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction, Romance. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.