Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Abstract only. Title from OhioLINK abstract page.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 245-261) Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. American Studies Program, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Mar. 31, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-176). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-223).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 556-579). Issued in print and online. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations.

published_or_final_version / English / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

George Heriot's, Travels Through The Canadas, Containing a Description of the Picturesque Scenery on some of the Rivers and Lakes; with an account of the Productions, Commerce, and Inhabitants of those Provinces to which is Subjoined a Comparative View of the Manners and Customs of Several of the Indian Nations of North and South America, was first published in London in 1805. Presenting the Canadas in a documentary and picturesque mode, Heriot's Travels since its publication has been valued as an important source of data and information. It has thus participated in and formed part of the received notions concerning Canada and its peoples in the 19th century. My thesis explores how Heriot's Travels constructs and represents Upper and Lower Canada and the diverse inhabitants of these regions. I argue that the text and its illustrations far from providing an objective description, in fact give form to contemporaneous perceptions and values and to aesthetic criteria that had colonialist implications. In particular the thesis examines how the visual material within the publication functions to reinforce or contradict the text's agenda. My contention is that Heriot's aims are much broader than those to which he admitted. For his readers the representation of Canada was tied to prospects of vast expansionist possibilities for British capital, technology, commodities and systems of knowledge. The unacknowledged aims of the book, as elaborated in my thesis were: to confirm the superiority of British rule in comparison to the earlier French administration in Canada; to define the British by a comparison to others, thus marking out existing inhabitants, specifically the French Canadians and First Nations peoples, as simple, indolent and inferior; to tame and commodity Canada through the use of the picturesque, thus ordering and civilizing the landscape for a British audience and would-be immigrants; and, finally, to reinforce Britain's economic claims in British North America. As in other travel writing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Heriot employs in his representation of Canada the discursive languages of science, taxonomy, technology and ethnology. The picturesque descriptions in text and image work in conjunction with these and serve to demonstrate the role of art and aesthetics in maintaining an established order, and in asserting its classificatory regimes and exclusions. iii

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2002. / Adviser: Sonia Hofkosh. Submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 291-310). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

George Heriot's, Travels Through The Canadas, Containing a Description of the Picturesque Scenery on some of the Rivers and Lakes; with an account of the Productions, Commerce, and Inhabitants of those Provinces to which is Subjoined a Comparative View of the Manners and Customs of Several of the Indian Nations of North and South America, was first published in London in 1805. Presenting the Canadas in a documentary and picturesque mode, Heriot's Travels since its publication has been valued as an important source of data and information. It has thus participated in and formed part of the received notions concerning Canada and its peoples in the 19th century. My thesis explores how Heriot's Travels constructs and represents Upper and Lower Canada and the diverse inhabitants of these regions. I argue that the text and its illustrations far from providing an objective description, in fact give form to contemporaneous perceptions and values and to aesthetic criteria that had colonialist implications. In particular the thesis examines how the visual material within the publication functions to reinforce or contradict the text's agenda. My contention is that Heriot's aims are much broader than those to which he admitted. For his readers the representation of Canada was tied to prospects of vast expansionist possibilities for British capital, technology, commodities and systems of knowledge. The unacknowledged aims of the book, as elaborated in my thesis were: to confirm the superiority of British rule in comparison to the earlier French administration in Canada; to define the British by a comparison to others, thus marking out existing inhabitants, specifically the French Canadians and First Nations peoples, as simple, indolent and inferior; to tame and commodity Canada through the use of the picturesque, thus ordering and civilizing the landscape for a British audience and would-be immigrants; and, finally, to reinforce Britain's economic claims in British North America. As in other travel writing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Heriot employs in his representation of Canada the discursive languages of science, taxonomy, technology and ethnology. The picturesque descriptions in text and image work in conjunction with these and serve to demonstrate the role of art and aesthetics in maintaining an established order, and in asserting its classificatory regimes and exclusions. iii / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the first-person overseas voyage narrative enjoyed an unprecedented degree of popularity in England. This thesis is concerned with texts written by travellers and the increasing perception that such information might be useful to those engaged in newly-developing scientific specialisms. It draws upon a wide range of texts including geographiae, physico-theological texts, first-person voyage narratives and imaginary voyage prose fictions. The main focus of the thesis is on the movement away from traditional encyclopaedic geographical textbooks whose treatment of non-European countries comprised an amalgam of unattributed information and a mass of traditional and erudite beliefs, towards a priontising of eyewitness accounts by named observers. Following an introductory survey of the production of an indigenous body of geographical literature in England, the first chapter traces the decline in popularity of traditional geographiae and the separation of regional description from general theories of the earth. The second chapter shows how in the Restoration period the concerted efforts of Fellows of the newly-established Royal Society resulted in a significant increase in the number of overseas travel narratives being published. The third chapter looks at the way in which the Royal Society's campaign developed from its initiation in 1666 to the close of the century, focusing on the response of travellers to the Society's requests for information. The fourth chapter considers the way in which earlier accounts were advertised as fulfilling contemporary expectations of this type of discourse. The fifth and sixth chapters concern fictitious voyage narratives. Imitative of a genre the value of which was increasingly seen as residing in its veracity, these fictions adapted in accordance with the changes being introduced to real voyage accounts whilst continuing to perpetuate the archaic myths and traditional beliefs which had been ehminated from factual geographical description. Appended to the thesis is a list of accounts of voyages and travels outside Europe, printed in the Philosophical Transactions (1665-1700). Also listed are reviews and abstracts of geographical texts, inquiries concerning specific locations and directions and instructions aimed at seamen, with brief biographical information about the authors to indicate the range of contributors to that journal.