19th-Century English Girls’ Adventure Stories: Domestic Imperialism, Agency, and the Female Robinsonades

Within the corpus of nineteenth-century Robinson Crusoe variations, considerably few of the texts have women authors, and even fewer feature a female protagonist; however, the rare English female Robinsonades present two noteworthy literary contributions. First, the earlier texts reposition the domestic component from a marginal concern to a central role within the imperial narrative. Second, later texts also challenge Victorian domestic ideology and develop a female protagonist who retains feminine characteristics in combination with the intellectual abilities and physical skills associated with men. These female “Crusoes” capably negotiate the domestic and the adventure spheres as well as create a new amount of the feminine.