Delirium: From Culture to Empire: A Study of the influence of the Stories of the The Thousand and One Nights on British Culture and Imperial Policy

Delirium discusses the influence of culture, in the form of literature and art, on British imperial policy of the nineteenth century. I examine works by various authors and painters, including William Beckford, Byron, Edward William Lane, Richard Dadd, John Frederick Lewis, George Eliot, Dickens and Disraeli. Translations of The Thousand and One Nights are key to this research and I trace their influence on the above discussed authors and artists from 1706 and up to the invasion of Egypt in 1882. The project is interdisciplinary in nature and would appeal to both scholars of literature and the British Empire as well as the educated public of interest in this area. Many of the stereotypes I trace in my research still exist today.