Bringing together heritage studies and literary studies, this book examines heritage as a ubiquitous trope in contemporary Britain, a seemingly inescapable figure for relations to the past. Inheritance has been an important metaphor for characterizing cultural and political traditions since the 1970s, but one criticized for its conservatism and apparent disinheritance of -new- Britons. Engaging with contemporary literary and cinematic texts, the book interrogates metaphoric resonances: that bestowing past, receiving present, and transmitted bounty are all singular and unified; that...