'… this is a persuasive and eminently readable book, and one that will be a valuable resource for anyone who researches and/or teaches late-Victorian literature and culture.' Nicholas Daly, Nineteenth-Century Literature
Introduction: better men; 1. Gunga Din and other better men: the burden of imperial manhood in Kipling's verse; 2. Cultural cross-dressing and the politics of masculine performance; 3. Piracy, play, and the boys who wouldn't grow up; 4. In statu pupillari: schoolboys, savages, and colonial authority; 5. Barbarism and the lost worlds of masculinity; 6. Mummies, marriage, and the occupation of Egypt; 7. Fitter men: H. G. Wells and the impossible future of masculinity; Bibliography.