Maritime Relations : Life, Labour and Literature at the Water's Edge, 1850–1914

Exploring representations of ordinary sailors, their families and the sea in Britain's long nineteenth century, this study engages a wealth of new archival material, including unpublished life writing, alongside re-readings of familiar novels and social surveys, to present an innovative account of the relations between class, family and the sea.

Detailing the lives of ordinary sailors, their families and the role of the sea in Britain''s long nineteenth century, Maritime Relations presents a powerful literary history from below. It draws on archival memoirs and logbooks, children''s fiction and social surveys, as well as the work of canonical writers such as Gaskell, Dickens, Conrad and Joyce. Maritime Relations highlights the workings of gender, the family, and emotions, with particular attention to the lives of women and girls. The result is an innovative reading of neglected kinship relations that spanned cities and oceans in the Victorian period and beyond. Working at the intersection of literary criticism, the blue humanities and life writing studies, Emily Cuming creatively redefines the relations between life, labour and literature at the waterly edge of the nineteenth century.