Detailed Description

It was no accident or quirk of literary taste that shipwreck narratives were so popular in the Romantic period: they were compelling reading because in diverse ways they touched on some of the most important issues of the day. In shipwreck narratives a maritime culture had to confront and negotiate with its greatest nightmare, so that these narratives possess a complex ideological dimension. As a result, the genre has much to tell us about the construction of British identity in this period, while shedding equally valuable light on British attitudes to a range of cultural 'Others', and the mechanisms by which images of such 'Others' were fashioned and disseminated.
Shipwreck narratives also provide a fascinating new perspective on topics as diverse as Romantic-era popular culture, the sublime, sentimentalism and sensationalism, popular representations of the sailor, the literature of religious and moral improvement, and travel writing.