'Virtual Voyages' is a fascinating account of the European
discovery of the elusive 'great south land' told through the
literature of 'imaginary voyages'. Written at the height of the era
of European maritime exploration, these bizarre and captivating
tales, with their wildly imaginative visions of antipodean
inversion and strangeness, reveal a hidden history of attitudes to
colonization. By exposing the relationship between myth and reality
in the antipodes, this book casts new light on the power of fiction
to influence history.
In the post-colonial studies field, books about travel writing
and empire have tended to focus on the high period of
nineteenth-century imperialism and on the colonial settings of
Africa and India. This book offers a fresh perspective by focussing
on the eighteenth century, and referring to the geographical region
of Australia and the Pacific, which has had far less attention. The
book also breaks new ground by being the first to approach the
genre of the imaginary voyage from a post-colonial perspective.
In addition to the new insights into European colonialism that
it offers, the book illustrates many broader themes in
eighteenth-century history and thought. These include connections
between the rise of science and modern imperialism, the development
of narrative history and fiction and the influence of romanticism,
the evolution of the early novel in Britain and France, and the
role of mythology in the development of national identity.
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