From: FRAGANO S LEDGISTER <f.ledgis-AT-msuacad.morehead-st.edu>
Subject: Re: Dickens & Empire
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 95 10:50:38 EDT


> 
> Fragano, I have the reference to Semmel's book, but haven't yet laid hands 
> on the book itself.  What I have read is a biography of Governor Eyre that 
> was informative, though largely an apologia for him.  Australians:  an 

This sounds like Geoffrey Dutton's _The Hero as Murderer_.

> interesting detail:  Eyre first went out to Australia as a young man, where 
> he made a name for himself as a heroic explorer and survivor (evidently he 
> was the inspiration for Patrick White's _Voss_) and even as a advocate for 
> the aborigines.  Later he went out to Jamaica as a civil servant, became 
> governor, and put down an insurrection with horrific brutality--as a result 
> of which he was charged with murder (and defended by Dickens and Carlyle, 
> among other prominent Victorians . . . ).
>

And opposed by other prominent Victorians such as John Stuart Mill, Fitzjames and Leslie Stephen, Thomas Henry Huxley, Thomas Hughes, and Charles Darwin.


> 
> I know Dickens is still read in the settler colonies (including the U.S.).  
> Listmembers who grew up elsewhere (Asia, Africa, the Caribbean . . . ), I'd 
> be interested to know if _you_ read Dickens in school . . . ?

Not as a set text, though Dickens was available in my high school library in
Jamaica (I was much more interested in Conan Doyle, O. Henry, and Willkie Collins, to name a few other  nineteenth century writers.) 

Cheers,
Fragano


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