The University of British Columbia
UBC - A Place of Mind
The University of British Columbia Vancouver campus
Department of English Language and Literatures
  • Courses
    • First-Year English Courses
    • Undergraduate Courses
    • Graduate Courses
    • Graduate Courses
    • Courses 2019 – Curriculum Changes
    • Course Descriptions Archive
  • First-Year English
    • First-Year English Courses
    • For Students in the Faculty of Arts
    • For Students in other Faculties and Graduate, Unclassified or Visiting Students
    • For Exchange Students
    • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
    • Advising
  • Undergraduate
    • Undergraduate Courses
    • View Career Possibilities
    • Major in English
    • Honours English
    • Minor in English
    • Advising
  • Graduate
    • Graduate Courses
    • General Information
    • M.A. Degree Requirements (Language or Literature)
    • Ph.D. Degree Requirements
    • Indigenous Critical and Creative Studies (ICCS)
    • Admission Information
    • PhD Co-op Program
    • Graduate Students
    • Contacts
  • People
    • Faculty
    • Graduate Faculty
    • Visiting Faculty
    • Emeriti Faculty
    • Administrative Office
    • Graduate Students
    • Alumni
  • Research
    • Department Bookshelf
    • Research Networks
  • Resources
    • Internal [AIR SITE]
    • For Students
    • For Teaching Assistants
    • Careers for English Graduates
    • Academic Careers
    • Postdoctoral Fellowship Applications
    • Visiting Scholars Application Information
    • Room Availability Calendars
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events Calendar
    • Newsletters
  • About
    • About the Department
    • English at UBC’s Vancouver Campus
    • Contact Us
» Home » 2021 » January » 01 » Writing the Empire: The McIlwraiths, 1853–1948

Writing the Empire: The McIlwraiths, 1853–1948

Eva-Marie Kröller

 University of Toronto Press

2021

Writing the Empire is a collective biography of the McIlwraiths, a family of politicians, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, scientists, and scholars. Known for their contributions to literature, politics, and anthropology, the McIlwraiths originated in Ayrshire, Scotland and spread across the British Empire, specifically North America and Australia, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.

Focusing on imperial networking, Writing the Empire reflects on the McIlwraiths’ life-writing through three generations, contained in correspondence, diaries, memoirs, and estate papers, along with published works by members of the family. By moving from generation to generation, but also from one stage of a person’s life to the next, the author investigates some of the ways in which various McIlwraiths, both men and women, articulated their identity as subjects of the British Empire over time. Kröller identifies parallel and competing forms of communication that involved major public figures beyond the family’s immediate circle, and explores the challenges issued by Indigenous people to imperial ideologies. Drawing from private papers and public archives, Writing the Empire is an illuminating biography that will appeal to readers interested in the links between life-writing and imperial history.

Purchase this Book

About the Author

Eva-Marie Kroller


Eva-Marie Kröller specializes in literary history, travel writing, life-writing, and cultural semiotics. She has been visiting professor at U of Bonn and Free U of Berlin and held an Alexander-von Humboldt Fellowship at the University of Bonn. Honours and fellowships include a Killam Research Prize, a Killam Teaching Prize, a Killam Faculty Research Fellowship, and election to the Royal Society of Canada. She has chaired UBC’s Programme in Comparative Literature and she has been editor of Canadian Literature, winning the Distinguished Editor Prize of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals and the Dean of Arts Award for her work at the journal.

Learn more about the author »

 

Department Bookshelf   |  Explore Our Bookshelf »

Modernism and the Idea of the Crowd
Judith Paltin

Oroonoko
Edited by Tiffany Potter

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Eliza Haywood
Edited by Tiffany Potter

Speechsong – The Gould/Schoenberg Dialogues
Richard Cavell

Historians on John Gower, edited by Stephen Rigby with Sian Echard

Historians on John Gower
Edited by Stephen Rigby with Siân Echard

Ovidian Transversions, ‘Iphis and Ianthe’, 1300-1650
Edited by Valerie Traub - Patricia Badir and Peggy McCracken

Creating Canadian English: The Professor, the Mountaineer, and a National Variety of English
Stefan Dollinger

The Book in Britain: A Historical Introduction
Zachary Lesser (Editor) - Daniel Allington - David A. Brewer - Stephen Colclough and Siân Echard

Pluricentricity Debate

The Pluricentricity Debate
Stefan Dollinger

Beautiful Untrue Things: Forging Oscar Wilde’s Extraordinary Afterlife
Gregory Mackie


Department of English Language and Literatures
Vancouver Campus
397 - 1873 East Mall
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1
Tel 604 822 9824
Find us on
    
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility