Adopting a postcolonial perspective, this survey traces the influence of the British Empire on nineteenth-century British literature, closely reading the work of several major Victorian authors: Dickens, Eliot, Charlotte Bront?, Disraeli, Tennyson, Yeats, Kipling, and Conrad. The book discusses pro-imperialist themes and attitudes in works by major Victorian authors and the attempts at resistance to and criticisms of the Empire, such as abolitionism and nationalism. Grounding its argument in nineteenth-century literary texts, the volume illuminates several major debates central to imperial and postcolonial studies. They concern imperial historiography and Marxism, gender and race, Orientalism, mimicry, and subalternity and representation.