Postcolonial literature in Chinese from the Nanyang, literally the South Seas, examines the history of Chinese migration, localization, and interethnic exchange in Southeast Asia, and offers a rich variety of approaches to identity. In Writing the South Seas, Brian Bernards explores why Nanyang encounters, which have been neglected by most literary histories, should be seen as crucial to the national literatures of China and Southeast Asia. He shows how Nanyang, as a literary trope, has been deployed as a platform by mainland and overseas Chinese writers to rethink colonial and national paradigms. Through a collection of diverse voices—from modern Chinese writers like Xu Dishan, Yu Dafu and Lao She to postcolonial Southeast Asian authors from Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand—writers such as Ng Kim Chew, Chia Joo Ming, Pan Yutong, Yeng Pway Ngon, Suchen Christine Lim, Praphatson Sewikun and Fang Siruo—Bernards demonstrates how the Nanyang imagination negotiates the boundaries of national literature as a meaningful postcolonial subject, and speaks to broader conversations in postcolonial and global literature. This book, written from the emerging field of Sinophone Studies, puts the literature of the region in a new light.

Postcolonial literature about the South Seas, or Nanyang, examines the history of Chinese migration, localization, and interethnic exchange in Southeast Asia, where Sinophone settler cultures evolved independently by adapting to their "New World" and mingling with native cultures. Writing the South Seas explains why Nanyang encounters, neglected by most literary histories, should be considered crucial to the national literatures of China and Southeast Asia.

This book offers a wide-ranging survey of Australian engagement with the Pacific Islands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through over 100 hitherto largely unexplored accounts of travel, the author explores how representations of the Pacific Islands in letters, diaries, reminiscences, books, newspapers and magazines contributed to popular ideas of the Pacific Islands in Australia. It offers a range of valuable insights into continuities and changes in Australian regional perspectives, showing that ordinary Australians were more closely connected to the Pacific Islands than has previously been acknowledged. Addressing the theme of travel as a historical, literary and imaginative process, this cultural history probes issues of nation and empire, race and science, commerce and tourism by focusing on significant episodes and encounters in history. This is a foundational text for future studies of Australia’s relations with the Pacific, and histories of travel generally.

First published in 2005. In the South Seas is the story of Louis's travels through the Pacificon the Casco and later on the schooner Equator. It is a beautifully observed account of island peoples and their life, but above all it is the story of the beginning of Louis's love affair with the Pacific.

This collection redresses both the gender and geopolitical biases that have characterized most writings within the Robinsonade for young readers since its inception, and includes chapters on little-known works of fiction by female authors, as well as works from outside the mainstream of Anglo-American culture.

Examines a range of Robert Southey's writing to explore the relationship between Romantic literature and colonial politics during the expansion of Britain's second empire. This study draws upon a range of interdisciplinary materials to consider the impact of his work upon nineteenth-century views of empire.

Robert Louis Stevenson: Writer of Boundaries reinstates Stevenson at the center of critical debate and demonstrates the sophistication of his writings and the present relevance of his kaleidoscopic achievements. While most young readers know Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) as the author of Treasure Island, few people outside of academia are aware of the breadth of his literary output. The contributors to Robert Louis Stevenson: Writer of Boundaries look, with varied critical approaches, at the whole range of his literary production and unite to confer scholarly legitimacy on this enormously influential writer who has been neglected by critics. As the editors point out in their Introduction, Stevenson reinvented the “personal essay” and the “walking tour essay,” in texts of ironic stylistic brilliance that broke completely with Victorian moralism. His first full-length work of fiction, Treasure Island, provocatively combined a popular genre (subverting its imperialist ideology) with a self-conscious literary approach. Stevenson, one of Scotland’s most prolific writers, was very effectively excluded from the canon by his twentieth-century successors and rejected by Anglo-American Modernist writers and critics for his play with popular genres and for his non-serious metaliterary brilliance. While Stevenson’s critical recognition has been slowly increasing, there have been far fewer published single-volume studies of his works than those of his contemporaries, Henry James and Joseph Conrad.

More than ten years in the making, this comprehensive single-volume literary survey is for the student, scholar, and general reader. The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature represents a collaborative effort, involving 300 contributors from across the US and Canada. Composed of more than 1,100 signed biographical-critical entries, this Encyclopedia serves as both guide and companion to the study and appreciation of American literature. A special feature is the topical article, of which there are 70.

" ... Documents the history and development of [Post-colonial literatures in English, together with English and American literature] and includes original research relating to the literatures of some 50 countries and territories. In more than 1,600 entries written by more than 600 internationally recognized scholars, it explores the effect of the colonial and post-colonial experience on literatures in English worldwide.