| dc.description.abstract | This thesis will examine representations of the Isles of Scilly in the years 1847-
1967, an era in which writings about this South-Western archipelago reached a particular
peak. Following a paper trail of travel guides, periodicals, postcards and newspaper
cuttings, the chapters presented here will critically evaluate the ways in which Scilly, a
traditionally “isolated” area, was introduced and put forward in a range of media, analysing
the rise of island tourism through a literary lens. Analogously, the thesis will consider to
what extent the Lost Land of Lyonesse, a submerged stretch of land said to have once
connected Scilly with Mainland Britain, was reimagined as an island “utopia” by urban
metropolitan writers. By tracking the Arthurian vision of Alfred Tennyson, the travel writings
of George Henry Lewes and George Eliot, the Gothic narratives presented by Thomas
Hardy, Bram Stoker, and Daphne du Maurier, the Scilly-set modern romance of Walter
Besant, and the petrocritical poetry of Jack Clemo and Charles Causley, this project
examines the ways that the islands and their waters served as sources of romance,
intrigue, anxiety, and hope. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the industrialisation
of Modern Britain seemed to encourage and invite reflections on a “lost,” remote, and yet
conveniently close archipelago, yet the literary culture of Scilly has received little critical
attention, appearing as an absence in anthologies of archipelagic or regional literature,
and in studies of the long nineteenth century, ever since. This thesis therefore seeks to
redress this gap, recovering the story of Scilly’s lost literary tourists but also pointing
towards the island stories that these metropolitan writers ignored or effaced from view. | en_GB |
