Writing and Remembrance: New Directions in Livingstone Studies

This volume of essays contains some of the best recent work on the Victorian missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813–1873), gathered together for the bicentenary of his birth. The following introduction delineates ‘Livingstone Studies’ as a field of research and directs attention to its inherently interdisciplinary nature. It summarises the various papers in the collection, gathered together under the two broad thematic categories of ‘writing’ and ‘remembrance’. Additionally, this introduction argues that the papers speak well beyond their Livingstone focus. In the first section scholars are directed to the margins of empire, as the articles articulate the importance of ‘peripheral’ spaces and intercultural interaction in shaping Victorian identities and geographical and imperial knowledge. The analytic approach and broader context of the papers, moreover, as they delve into the archive of exploration, will be of general interest to scholars of print culture and travel literature. The second section extends the collection’s value beyond the nineteenth century altogether. For those interested in reception and reputation studies, the detailed examination of one heroic reputation will offer productive ways for thinking about the legacies of public figures.