This thesis explores Robert Louis Stevenson’s re-imagining of adventure narrative through the development of a unique aesthetics of adventure across his oeuvre. From a methodological perspective, it approaches a wide range of Stevenson’s work—manuscripts, letters, and essays in addition to the fiction—through an initial framework of adventure theory. Analysis of individual adventure archetypes within Stevenson’s writing is further enriched through interaction with a wide variety of secondary critical sources. The Introduction commences the investigation of Stevenson’s conceptualisation of the term adventure, with subsequent chapters considering the author’s re-casting of specific topoi central to the tradition of literary adventure. Although every chapter makes reference to a variety of the author’s works, close readings are limited to one text per chapter in which the trope under discussion is employed in an especially compelling manner. Chapter One considers Stevenson’s exploration of chance within adventure and focuses on the opposition between chance and Providence found throughout The Master of Ballantrae. Chapter Two examines the role of Stevenson’s protagonists, an investigation which culminates in the assessment of Jim Hawkins’ ethical agency in Treasure Island. Chapter Three contemplates Stevenson’s extrapolation of the darker elements of adventure narrative, probing his representation of villainy as portrayed in The Ebb-Tide. Chapter Four looks at the author’s frequently subversive manipulation of traditional adventure landscapes and maps out his presentation of the ethical connotations associated with place in The Black Arrow. Chapter Five investigates the destination of adventure, with particular attention placed upon the author’s conceptualisation of homegoing and the essence of home in Kidnapped.

This thesis is about Thackeray and the comic tradition in the plays and novels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It aims at showing that a study of Thackeray's fiction and its connection with the comedy of the past contributes to an understanding of the sophistication and subtlety of his comic vision. In his fiction Thackeray takes some of the comedic conventions of the tradition, though in some respects he also departs from them, expanding, developing and applying them to his time to make ironic comments on the inconsistencies and follies of English society from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. In the early and central stage of his career as a novelist he adheres to the comic tradition, yet he also introduces unconventional elements, while in the later phase occasionally he detaches himself from it temporarily, but never completely. This study examines the Thackeray's major works of fiction in chronological order, because it allows us to trace a development of his comic perspective, his narrative technique and his concerns through time. Each chapter deals with a single work of fiction, except Chapter 1 and Chapter 8. A selection of his illustrations, which offer visual comments on the story, will also be analysed; they have various purposes and integrate with the text, adding subtlety and sophistication to the author's vision. Thackeray's comic perspective is a complex combination of satire and sentimentality where the two aspects often overlap and generate ambiguity and challenge for the reader. But, ultimately, this thesis reveals that towards the end of his life the writer enriches his vision considerably by adding tragic elements in alignment with comic ones, and that he was turning to a new direction: he was embracing the tragicomic.

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The thesis is split into two parts. The first part investigates the production, reception, and reconstruction of Robert Louis Stevenson's South Seas writing during his travels there in the years 1888-91, and its subsequent publication as In the South Seas in 1896. The second part concentrates on the findings that Stevenson makes during his Pacific travels in respect of the discourses of culture that shape the academic sciences of his day. The writing that Stevenson produces for his 'Big Book' on the cultures of the Pacific Islands is among the least-examined of all his works. His book of travel, In the South Seas, is published posthumously and contains material that is presented in a way that is not intended by the author. In the present study the reasons for this situation are investigated, and the work that the author intends to produce is recovered on the basis of the plans, notes, and photographs which remain from the period of his travels. The reconstructed work is then compared with the published volume of In the South Seas to show the extent to which textual mutilation and re-editing has significantly altered the meaning of Stevenson's original writing. In the South Seas is a text that is re-shaped by his editor in order to satisfy what is seen as a Victorian readership's desire for sentimental voyaging. Stevenson's writing is then read within the context of the Victorian study of culture as represented by Edward Burnett Tylor, to show his engagement with and criticism of some of Tylor's theories. Finally, the South Seas writing is framed within the perspective of Stevenson's reading of GWF Hegel, showing the extent to which his observations on Pacific landscapes and cultures are informed by Hegel's discussion of the antinomies of Immanuel Kant.

The project offers new insight on the place of friendship in Forster's work, examining its political, philosophic, discursive, and aesthetic implications. Through examination of archival material, it focuses especially on some of his own friendships to delineate their influence in the development of his ideas, while highlighting the links across a long and varied discursive tradition of friendship. It, thus, works across the interstices of biography, fiction, and non-fiction. The emphasis on the literary friendship with Forrest Reid has hitherto been accorded scant regard, and provides for a particularly original argument regarding Forster's novel Maurice, using the E. M. Forster-Forrest Reid Letters Archive at Special Collections, QUB (MS44/1/22), and Reid's fiction, namely The Garden God. With regard to A Passage to India, the thesis traces the place of friendship from within Hinduism and Islam, including Bhakti and Sufi traditions, or both orthodox and heterodox religious traditions, which allow Forster to include desire within the realms of friendship. The dissertation displays the political potential for friendship in Forster's oeuvre to challenge the exclusionary boundaries of the colonial and liberal state by redefining what friendship entails, and who can be a friend. Same-sex desire, and inter-race and inter-class relations become embroiled in this new friendship. Forster's realization of this holistic model of friendship emerges through various standpoints in his novels-from a Greco-Roman philosophic understanding of friendship, through a deconstruction of late nineteenth-century Platonism, to an assimilation of the Eastern religious and poetic ideas about friendship.

This thesis explores the possibility of re-reading texts and key scenes in Dickens by placing his fictional work in the context of nineteenth century historical and medical debates. These readings often reveal hidden discourses or subtexts which are embedded in Dickens's fiction, sometimes operating independently of the wider plots and narratives. Five key medical issues or debates are selected to provide a framework for rediagnising or proving alternative re-readings of Dickens's work. They are issues surrounding the aetiologies of disease, attitudes and responses to disability, the professionalisation of medicine and nursing, the link between crime, illness and criminal culpability and the debates surrounding ideal states of health. Aetiologies of disease are considered alongside contemporary critical responses to disease and social reform in Dickens's fiction and their impact on key figures, scenes and plot development. By examining attitudes and responses to disability the thesis explores how whilst Dickens clearly participates in traditional stereotypical depictions of disability he is also challenging conventional attitudes. In relation to the nineteenth century professionalisation of medicine and nursing, Dickens participates in rewriting the changing role of physicians and nurses. Ideas of nursing and professional care are contrasted with care motivated by family ties and the compassion of individuals. Crime, illness and criminal culpability are explored with a focus on epilepsy, and how illness is used as a metaphor and as part of characterisation. Villainous characters are reread in the light of this condition. Finally, the thesis concludes with an examination of health, identifying what Dickens advocated as a healthy state and how this could be maintained. Ultimately, the thesis reveals the increasing complexity with which Dickens engages with these debates. This historical and cultural approach provides a method to explore both Dickens's life and his fiction.

This reexamination of Anne Brontë's novels and her critical legacy uncovers a new framework by which to understand both the novelist and her novels. The core of this new interpretation is Brontë's debt to a rational feminist tradition and the unique manner in which she uses education and advice to relay this radical, feminist message. Brontë's fiction connects advice and education in order to address the inequities of patriarchal power and the idealization of female domesticity. Her novels critique patriarchal privilege and the way it damages women and even men. I have organized this thesis into three sections. The first, covering the first three chapters, places the author and her ideas within a larger historical perspective. Chapter One delineates Brontë's critical legacy, addressing in particular the origins of many misunderstandings and misassumptions assigned to her both from her elder sister's commentary and from the larger critical community. It also tracks the development of the field by identifying three distinct waves of Anne Brontë scholarship, and suggests other avenues to improve the overall understanding of this neglected and misunderstood writer. Chapter Two considers the context of Brontë's era by considering the social milieu and historical events that are repeated in the themes of her novels. It explores in particular the educational, legal and social aspects of early Victorian women's lives and provides a backdrop for Brontë's fiction, her methods, and her message. Lastly, Chapter Three recounts Brontë's personal history, focusing specifically on her sibling relationships and religious convictions as influencing her unique rational perspective, emphasizing the origins of Brontë's independence and literary talents. The second section of this study surveys possible influences for the themes and circumstances presented in the two novels. Chapter Four begins by reviewing the author's childhood with a specific focus on her education and available readings. The chapter also views contemporary social scandals as a resource for the realism of Brontë's novels. Chapter Five shifts the focus from social-historical occurrences to the influence of rational feminism and the ideas found in both eighteenth century and contemporary writings. Centered on rational feminist ideology, this chapter looks at the thematic and stylistic similarities between Brontë's works and other so-called feminist writings as well as those works written by women considered anti-feminist. In both of her novels, Brontë reproduces the inconsistencies inherent in the problematic position of women. She offers as a remedy a rationally based ideology that is conveyed through the advice and teachings of her characters. The final section of this study uses this new understanding to reevaluate her prose. Chapter Six places particular emphasis on Brontë's characterization of women and their traditional duties in Agnes Grey (1847). She critiques the roles of daughter, mother and governess, exposing the shortcomings of a system that limits women's authority, and proposes alternative female behavior. Chapter Seven continues the analysis of women's roles in The Tenant of Wild Fell Hall (1848) but turns to the more mature stages of female life. The voices of wives, mothers and female friends relate their own tales, and the reader receives intimate, first- hand accounts rather than through the filter of an observer such as the governess. Rational advice and the need for improved education thematically link these last chapters; however, Tenant benefits from a fuller, more mature vision of women's struggles within a restrictive system. Overall, both novels provide commentary and advice on contemporary social issues. Brontë resists sensationalism and instead works to expose problems in the prevailing social attitudes and expectations faced by women.

This thesis explores the intersections between George Eliot's and Charles Darwin's fictional and scientific styles whilst demonstrating that Eliot and Darwin are both novelistic scientists and scientific novelists. By analysing their representation of masculinity, in particular masculine subjectivity, I argue that literature and science are first and foremost modes of expression, based on internal perceptions and projections, themselves variable, and liable to external influences. It is precisely the extent of these influences that determines the degree of feminine and masculine performativity. Close readings of Eliot's and Darwin's works ultimately reveal a complex and controversial communication, whilst uncovering two authors self-consciously aware of the importance of style, form, and the staging of visual representations. Although the idea that scientific and literary texts are influenced by stereotyped visions of masculinity and femininity is not a new one, it is one that is still very much under debate. My contribution to this particular conundrum consists of the examination of the ambiguity surrounding the representations of masculinity, not only within the various evolutionary strands leading to the formulation of Darwin's own theory of sexual selection, but also in Eliot's Adam Bede (1859) and the Mill on the Floss (1860). As authors such as Ludmilla Jordanova have acknowledged, although researchers have always explored themes analogous to both fields, their investigation was often 'predicated on the idea that literature borrowed from and popularised science'. Instead, I suggest that science was itself influenced by Victorian ideals about masculinity. Literary and scientific texts are, after all, forms of cultural discourse: in their essence both creative and productive, and thus, eternally changing. Chapter One provides a brief history of sexual selection within the various evolutionary strands leading to Darwin's own formulation of the theory in the Origin (1859), and later, in greater depth, in the Descent (1871). Chapter Two investigates Eliot's involvement in the philological and evolutionary debates of her time, which were further linked to the theory of visuality. It illustrates how Eliot's interpretive method, akin to Darwin's, is based on powerful visual representations, and how these are related to questions of (un)consciousness and performance. Chapter Three explores the large and still relatively unexplored 'dark continent' within men's studies. It pays special attention to Victorian men's emotional impulses by attesting to their desire for domestic and fatherly identities. Chapter Four uncovers the psychological catalysts of gender performances whilst investigating the affinities between theatricality, evolution, and plotting. Finally, Chapter Five establishes nature as the evolutionary stage for the unfolding of human dramas, in particular masculine ones.

The Commerce of Literature: George Gissing and Late Victorian Publishing, 1880-1903 examines the economic and commercial background of late Victorian publishing and the changing commercial environment for authors. George Gissing (1857-1903) is best know today for his 1891 novel New Grub Street, the quintessential novel of authorship and publishing in the nineteenth century. The records, copyright ledgers, and contracts of Gissing’s major publishers demonstrate how the complexity of publishing after 1880, particularly the growth of an international market, required professional assistance from literary agents to secure the rights and rewards that authors were increasingly demanding. Contracts also underwent a transformation, and Gissing’s provide examples of how they were changed by new markets and the rise of the agent. Serialization of novels in popular and literary magazines and the publication of short stories were also important outlets in the late 19th century. Gissing’s letters, dairy, and his records of payments show how important such activity could be for a late-nineteenth century novelist. In 1894 the dominance of the three-volume novel ended when the circulating libraries refused to accept them. The three-volume format was and still is defended on the grounds that it was almost always profitable for publishers and encouraged them to take risks on new novels. This thesis uses an examination of publishers’ accounts to show that the format only made money if the copyright payments were kept below £150 and the majority of the edition was sold. Many new novelists, such as Gissing, only saw their way into print if they agreed to subsidize their first novel. An esteemed but never a popular novelist, Gissing’s literary earnings were still within a middle-class income range and demonstrated that the newly developed profession of authorship was increasingly viable.