Australian History
Book Details

Marcus Clarke's Bohemia

Literature and Modernity in Colonial Melbourne

Academic Monograph

Andrew McCann

An in-depth study that unearths the richness of Marcus Clarke's writing and brings nineteenth-century Melbourne to life.

About this Title

Marcus Clarke's Bohemia is the first major critical study of Marcus Clarke - arguably Australia's best known and most important nineteenth-century writer. It situates Clarke both within the bohemian culture of Melbourne and a burgeoning cosmopolitan print-culture extending beyond national borders.

Marcus Clarke's Bohemia offers detailed readings of Clarke's major works, many of which have not previously been discussed, and traces the influence of other European writers on Clarke's writing. Importantly, it focuses on his engagement with the modernity of the place and time in which he worked and lived.

McCann's in-depth study unearths the richness of Clarke's writing and brings nineteenth-century Melbourne to life. Impeccably researched and gracefully written, Marcus Clarke's Bohemia is challenging and compelling reading.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Cultural Dislocation and the Modernity of Colonialism
Chapter 1: Bohemia and the Dream-life of the Colonial City
Chapter 2: The Peripatetic Philosopher: Urban Space, Entertainment and the Comedy of the Marketplace
Chapter 3: The Gothic Commodity and the Secret of the Popular
Chapter 4: Textual Phantasmagoria: Romanticism, Light Literature and the Colonial Uncanny
Chapter 5: Colonial Gothic: Sensibility, Sovereignty and Settler-Colonialism
Conclusion: Felix and Felicitas: Beyond Bohemia

About the Author

Dr Andrew McCann is both an academic and a novelist, lecturing in the Department of English at the University of Melbourne. He is widely published in Australian and international journals on the subjects of Australian and British literature.

978-0-522-85140-3