Representations of Britain and British Colonialism in French Adventure Fiction, 1870–1914

Abstract

Recent scholarship has rediscovered the plural manifestations of a colonial culture in France, emerging after 1870 and reaching its apogee in the early 1930s. The period between 1870 and 1914, when France was undergoing rapid modernisation and was fully engaged in the process of consolidating its distinct national identity, constitutes the richest period for the impregnation of French society by this culture. This article reveals how images of British colonialism contrasted with representations of French colonial practice across a number of examples of popular adventure novels written between 1867 and 1903 by contemporaries and imitators of Jules Verne: Alfred Assollant, Paul d'Ivoi and Colonel Driant.