ABSTRACT
In theatrical spectacles that brought to dazzling life the dark and distant corners of the Empire—Australia, India, and South Africa—Victorian playwrights thrilled audiences with dramas of diamond thieves and villainous soldiers, hardy emigrants and fortunes both lost and found, humanitarian intervention in indigenous societies, and crusades against moral corruption. Like those plays I have already catalogued and commented upon, there are dozens upon dozens of dramas whose invocation of imperial themes, characters, and spaces highlighted, critiqued, and reaffirmed the identity of Britain and its people. These are, alas, plays that must remain confined—for now—in the archive that has quietly held them for so long. But before I close the book on that archive, there is one last gasp of imperial theatrics begging for its moment in the limelight. It is, however, a moment that marks a beginning as well as an end, and is thus less a conclusion than notes toward a further, future discussion.
