Making a Man: Gentlemanly Appetites in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel Masculinities in British Adventure Fiction, 1880–1915

Abstract

‘Masculinity’, Joseph A. Kestner writes in his study of British adventure fiction, ‘describes the codes of male behaviour in culture that construct male subjectivity’ (p. 27). The social, historical and cultural forces that produce and problematize these constructions throughout the nineteenth century have received a substantial reassessment in Gwen Hyman's compelling analysis of the role of food, drink and drugs in structuring notions of gentlemanliness. Questions of class, social control and a developing commodity culture are central to a detailed and nuanced exploration of the politics of consumption that offers valuable new insights for scholars of nineteenth-century material culture and the medical humanities as well as for those working in literary studies. Hyman's monograph is something of a critical feast: fresh, sophisticated and entertaining. Kestner's offering by contrast is sadly unadventurous: a diligent but uninspiring overview of the ‘crucial importance of adventure literature in imprinting codes of masculinity’ (p. 1) that misses the opportunity to re-invigorate this well-established theme with a new theoretical lens or with overdue scrutiny of some less familiar texts.