Imagining England’s Past: Inspiration, Enchantment, Obsession

Imagining England’s Past takes a long look at the country’s invented histories, from the glamorous to the disturbing, from the eighth century to the present day.

Valorized, weaponized, completely made up: England has long built its sense of self on a sense of its past. What does it mean for Geoffrey of Monmouth to call forth King Arthur from the post-Roman fog; for William Morris to resurrect the skills of the medieval workshop and Julia Margaret Cameron to portray the Arthurian court using her Victorian camera; or for Yinka Shonibare to visualize a Black Victorian dandy in the final years of the twentieth century?

Told through the distinctive imaginings of successive generations, this book considers how and why national myths have come into being, the multitude of forms they have taken and what centuries of looking back might mean for the present and future. Not a history of England, but a history of those who have written, drawn and dreamed it into being, Imagining England’s Past offers a lively, erudite account of the creation and contestation of the English past.