Date of Award
Summer 8-15-2021
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
This dissertation examines the publishing histories and material forms of English-language texts by authors from areas colonized by Britain in Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean who published in England between 1900 and 1940. Drawing on a dataset of publishing information for over 1,200 books, I trace the increasing number of texts by authors from colonized nations appearing in print in England in the early 20th century. I begin with discussions of the commercial editions of Sarojini Naidu’s and Claude McKay’s poetry, followed by an account of the brief vogue in exoticist fine press publishing catalyzed by Rabindranath Tagore and W.B. Yeats. I then look at the publication of anticolonial fiction by white authors at Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press, and I close with a discussion of the marketing of novels by authors from South Asia and the Caribbean in the mid-thirties. Broadly, I consider how ideas about empire, coloniality, and race were inscribed in the material and visual forms of early 20th century books and how authors from colonized nations critiqued, manipulated, and sometimes reinforced these framings within their writings.
Language
English (en)
Chair and Committee
Vincent Sherry
Committee Members
J. D. Brown, Priya Joshi, William J. Maxwell, Melanie Micir,
Recommended Citation
Preus, Anna, "Publishing Empire: Colonial Authorship and British Literary Production, 1900-1940" (2021). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2521.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/2521