‘[A] very improbable and imaginative fiction’: Fictionalising the French invasion of Fishguard

Abstract

In the years leading up to the centenary of the last invasion of the British mainland, several historical novels in Welsh and English chronicled the events of the French landing near Fishguard in 1797. These fictional explorations throw Welsh national identity into relief at a time when Britain consolidated its domestic and overseas territories against its main rival, France. While ostensibly set in the historical past, the novels under observation share significant traits with the popular genre of the invasion novel that came to the fore in the second half of the nineteenth century as the British Empire neared its largest extent. Published during a time of cultural and political revivals in late-Victorian Wales, these historical invasion novels offer a different, literary way to examine past discourses around Welsh nationhood and national territory as well as coloniality and sovereignty.