Transatlantic Elegies for Boyhood: First-Person Adventure Narratives After 1865

Abstract

Original title: First-Person Narratives “in pursuit of a boy who was never here, nor anywhere”: Transatlantic Elegies for Boyhood After 1865 In this article, I argue that the narrative structure of adventure fiction in the late nineteenth century invites resistant rather than imitative reading practices. Paying close attention to original illustrations and paratextual materials, I contend that boys such as Jim Hawkins and Huckleberry Finn are revealed as textual constructions that allow authors to meditate on boyhood both within and across national boundaries.