Spending a pleasant evening considering the connections between three anti-imperialist novels: Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897), War of the Worlds by HG Wells (1898, though serialized in 1897), and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899) ... all of which came out during and after Queen Victoria's opulent "Golden Jubilee" to celebrate 50 years of glorious Victorian imperialism.
Huh. Every time I re-read #Dracula, I feel like I discover more Victorian hang-ups: gender roles, women having power/independence/pleasure, foreigners, the rise of US power, sex in general… but yeah, angst over Empire would go a long way to explain characters’ talking about how great it is to have money and rank and Imperial institutions to use in their quest to take out the count. I’ll have to watch for more of that on my inevitable next read.
