British Travel Writers in Morocco, 1856-1937: Discursive Encounters

British Travel Writers in Morocco, 1856-1937: Discursive Encounters reflects the growing academic interest in travel writing as a literary genre shaped by colonial and imperial motivations that transcend both literary canons and geographical boundaries. The book offers a compelling overview of British travelogues about Morocco during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, providing new insights for Maghrebi and postcolonial studies. Owing to its interdisciplinary nature, the travelogue genre surpasses traditional borders to present elaborate and critically engaging accounts of the various, though often asymmetric, physical and discursive encounters that occurred during both the pre-colonial and colonial periods. The critical and intellectual significance of this genre is informed by post-structuralist, colonialist, and modernist theories - with their diverse analytical tools - as well as by the postcolonial commitment to interrogate colonial legacies and archives.

The book analyzes a group of texts written by British travellers in Morocco between 1856 and 1937, including Walter B. Harris, Robert S. Watson, Joseph Thomson, Hugh Stutfield, Frances Macnab, and Richard C. Woodville, among others. These travel writers provide substantial and heterogenous accounts that meticulously record, describe, and translate the constitution and evolution of Britain's cultural imaginary and consciousness of Morocco, its 'dissemiNation' of human civilisation, and its imperial ambitions, assumptions, and rhetoric.