Esotismo, antischiavismo, colonialismo: Adventures in Borneo di Catherine Gore

Abstract

Within Catherine Gore’s vast literary corpus there is an uncharacteristic novel titled Adventures in Borneo: A Tale of a Shipwreck (1849), in which the author experiments with exotic settings and adventures, a fictional subgenre in which she is not entirely comfortable. In the period of its publication, the British press was reporting and commenting on the controversial events involving Sir James Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak, and his anti-piracy campaign in the waters of the Malay Archipelago. In this article I try to investigate Gore’s take on such a delicate topic as British conduct in remote foreign lands, vis-à-vis alien cultures; I also refer to one of her unpublished letters, as well as to Brooke’s journal published in 1846 – most likely her primary source for the socio-cultural information on the Borneo population deployed in the novel. This article also seeks to contribute to the critical-literary debate over Catherine Gore providing a starting point for a more thorough study of her attitude towards British colonialism.