CFP: a collection on H. Rider Haggard (10/31/2011)

Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was a novelist, country gentleman, social commentator, onetime colonial administrator and failed ostrich farmer whose prodigious output comprises a significant but under-examined contribution to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature. While his two most famous works, King Solomon’s Mines (1886) and She (1887) have attracted a steady stream of articles in recent years, most notably from the fields of postcolonial and gender studies, a significant proportion of his oeuvre remains almost entirely unstudied, despite their considerable popular success in his lifetime. Following an initial call for papers we have assembled a strong line-up of essays including contributions on Haggard and science; historical romance; carnivorousness; Haggard’s Aztec writing; Haggard’s gorilla novels; authorship and textuality; Haggard and Modernism and a study of a  previously unpublished Haggard short story. 

We are now seeking to extend and enhance the collection with a small number of additional essays. Radical reappraisals of Haggard’s most noted texts are welcome, but we are particularly interested in articles that investigate less well-known works or that intend to explore Haggard’s diverse range of interests and under-estimated influence on and engagement with other, more celebrated authors. We aim for publication in late 2012.

Topics and approaches may include, but are not limited to:

• Spiritualism and the occult
• Egyptology
• Ecocritical readings
• Romance
• Cultural cross dressing
• Haggard, Freud and psychoanalysis
• Botany/ horticulture
• Haggard and his contemporaries
• Animal Studies
• Queer readings
• Literary topographies
• Fantasy
• Gender, space and the body
• Degeneration and urbanisation
• The fin-de-siècle
• Zionism/ anti-Semitism
• Anthropology/ ethnography
• The Best-seller
• The Nordic
• South African experiences
• Children’s Literature

Please send abstracts not exceeding 500 words along with a brief biographical profile to John Miller at jmiller1@unbc.ca by 31^st October.  Chapters will be 6,000 words in length and will be commissioned by 15^th November for delivery by 1^st March. Any queries are welcome.