About this ebook
The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman (1778) tells the story of a fictional midshipman abandoned in Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand, after a battle with Maori that claims the lives of ten of his shipmates. Inspired by an actual event on Captain Cook’s second voyage, Bowman’s adventures take him to increasingly sophisticated cultures—hunter/ gatherer, pastoral/nomadic, agricultural, and commercial—that dramatize stadial history in a Pacific setting. The work provocatively weaves together popular fascination with Cook’s voyages, sensational conceptions of the newly charted Pacific, contemporary ideas on human development and culture, topical satire on London life, and a fanciful castaway story. As an introduction to the cultural connections linking Pacific studies, the Scottish Enlightenment, and eighteenth-century English society and politics, The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman is unique in literary history and unsurpassed as a teaching text. Of equal importance, it marks the birth of a national literature. It is the first New Zealand novel.
Historical appendices provide an exceptionally broad range of materials on the Grass Cove “massacre,” the eighteenth-century stadial theory of historical development, cannibalism, and contemporary depictions of the South Pacific and its indigenous peoples.
About the author
Lance Bertelsen is Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
