Imperial Romance
Back to people overviewA popular adventure genre associated especially with the late nineteenth century, when the expansion of the British Empire and the ‘Scramble for Africa’ encouraged fantasies of remote territories as spaces of danger, treasure, and discovery. Imperial Romance often follows European explorers into regions imagined as mysterious or unmapped, where they encounter lost kingdoms, ancient cultures, exotic peoples, and fabulous wealth. H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885) is one of the defining examples.
Image: Map showing the way to Kukuanaland in H. Rider Haggard's 'King Solomon's Mines' (1885) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
