This collection takes as its starting point the ubiquitous representation of various forms of mental illness, breakdown and psychopathology in Caribbean writing, and the fact that this topic has been relatively neglected in criticism, especially in Anglophone texts, apart from the scholarship devoted to Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). The contributions to this volume demonstrate that much remains to be done in rethinking the trope of "madness" across Caribbean literature by local and diaspora writers. This book asks how focusing on literary manifestations of apparent mental aberration can extend our understanding of Caribbean narrative and culture, and can help us to interrogate the norms that have been used to categorize art from the region, as well as the boundaries between notions of rationality, transcendence and insanity across cultures.

This pioneering study surveys nineteenth- and twentieth-century narratives of the West Indies written by white women, English and Creole. It introduces a fascinating wealth of relatively unknown material and constitutes a timely interrogation of the supposed homogeneity of Caribbean discourse, especially with regard to 'race' and gender.

Contents:
1. Introduction 2. Defamiliarizing 'The Mistress':Representations of White Women in the West Indies 3. 'This is Another World':Travel Narratives, Women and the Construction of Tropical Landscape 4. A Female 'El Dorado' 5. Narratives of Tainted Empire 6. Colonial Discourse and the Subaltern's Voice

This collection takes as its starting point the ubiquitous representation of various forms of mental illness, breakdown and psychopathology in Caribbean writing, and the fact that this topic has been relatively neglected in criticism, especially in Anglophone texts, apart from the scholarship devoted to Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). The contributions to this volume demonstrate that much remains to be done in rethinking the trope of “madness� across Caribbean literature by local and diaspora writers. This book asks how focusing on literary manifestations of apparent mental aberration can extend our understanding of Caribbean narrative and culture, and can help us to interrogate the norms that have been used to categorize art from the region, as well as the boundaries between notions of rationality, transcendence and insanity across cultures. 

This volume examines what Caribbean literature looked like before 1920 by surveying the print culture of the period. The emphasis is on narrative, including an enormous range of genres, in varying venues, and in multiple languages of the Caribbean. Essays examine lesser-known authors and writing previously marginalized as nonliterary: popular writing in newspapers and pamphlets; fiction and poetry such as romances, sentimental novels, and ballads; non-elite memoirs and letters, such as the narratives of the enslaved or the working classes, especially women. Many contributions are comparative, multilingual, and regional. Some infer the cultural presence of subaltern groups within the texts of the dominant classes. Almost all of the chapters move easily between time periods, linking texts, writers, and literary movements in ways that expand traditional notions of literary influence and canon formation. Using literary, cultural, and historical analyses, this book provides a complete re-examination of early Caribbean literature.

There has been an Irish presence within the Caribbean since at least the 1620s and yet the historical and cultural dimensions of this encounter remain relatively under-researched and are often conceived of in reductive terms by crude markers such as red legs or poor whites. While there are some striking reminders of this history in the names of people and places, as well as the renowned St Patrick's celebrations in Montserrat, this collection explores how the complications and contradictions of Irish-Caribbean relations are much richer and deeper than previously recognized. Offering a range of disciplinary perspectives, this volume opens up conversations between scholars based in Caribbean Studies and those in Irish Studies across the fields of history, politics, expressive cultural forms, and everyday practices. It makes an important contribution to Irish studies by challenging the dominance of a US diasporic history and a disciplinary focus on cultural continuity and ancestry. Likewise, within Caribbean studies, the Irish presence troubles the orthodox historical models for understanding race and the plantation, the race and class structures, as well as questions of ethnic and religious minorities. This ground-breaking collection of new work highlights the importance of understanding the transatlantic nexus between Ireland and the Caribbean in terms of the shared historical experiences of dislocation, diaspora and colonization, as well as of direct encounter. It pays tribute to the extraordinarily rich tradition of cultural expression that informs both cultures and their imagination of each other. The volume includes a list of resources that will encourage and facilitate ongoing research in this field.