Abstract

Abstract This article draws on an alternate history approach to the Victorian world and discusses steampunk and neo-Victorian literary and cultural features. It focuses on Richard Francis Burton-one of the most charismatic and controversial explorers and men of letters of his time-who stands out in a complex web of both real-life and fictional characters and events. Ultimately, the essay presents a twenty-first-century revisitation of the British Empire and the imperial project, thus providing a contemporary perception of Victorian worldliness and outward endeavours.

Highlights

  • This article draws on an alternate history approach to the Victorian world and discusses steampunk and neo-Victorian literary and cultural features

  • It focuses on Richard Francis Burton—one of the most charismatic and controversial explorers and men of letters of his time—who stands out in a complex web of both real-life and fictional characters and events

  • The series began with The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack (2010) and The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man (2011), and all the volumes can be examined from the point of view of alternate history, steampunk and the neo-Victorian imagination

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Summary

Introductory Remarks

The English author Mark Hodder has so far written six volumes in the Burton & Swinburne literary series, the most recent being The Return of the Discontinued Man (2014) and The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats (2015). The series began with The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack (2010) and The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man (2011), and all the volumes can be examined from the point of view of alternate history, steampunk and the neo-Victorian imagination. In order to examine the combination of fact and fiction, this article includes information on Richard Francis Burton as a historical figure and looks at Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (2012) and The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi (2013) so as to discuss the alternate history model used in the novels and the uses of steampunk and neo-Victorian conventions. Steampunk texts can be characterised as “a piece of speculative historical fiction that deploys Victorian subjects” (Bowser and Croxhall 1), a notion that offers insight into the features that are common to both steampunk and speculative fiction—the latter being associated with the alternate history genre, a category

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