ABSTRACT
This chapter examines representations of emigration in fiction published in ten popular magazines between 1870 and 1914 magazines which were bestsellers among the working and middle classes. Emigrant characters were primarily sent to three destinations in the New World Australia, the United States and Canada. The United States rivalled Australia as the most popular destination for emigrant characters. Despite its varying popularity, representations of Canada as an emigrant destination were surprisingly consistent throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Australia, the United States and Canada were therefore distinctly represented as emigrant destinations in late nineteenth and early twentieth century British popular fiction. Emigration tales were primarily stories about men particularly unmarried men emigrating to homosocial environments in the New World where they undertake manly work and adventure, and accumulate the resources necessary to get married and achieve independence. The dominant narrative of emigration during this period tells of male fortune-making and adventure-seeking in the wilds of the New World.
