Nevil Shute and the Decline of the Imperial Idea' In Literature

Abstract

After John Buchan, Nevil Shute. In the long progression of popular British writers who have woven stories around the social facts and cultural values of empire, a progression which extends from Charles Kingsley and G. A. Henty through Paul Scott and, arguably, Ian Fleming, Nevil Shute occupies a distinguishable and important place. Both in his own right and as a representative figure he deserves analysis on account of his part in the literary re-statement of what has fairly been called the ‘imperial idea,’ that matrix of assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes which had sustained and rationalized the endeavors of several generations of politicians, publicists, and civil servants, but whose relevance to Great Britain's circumstances after the Second World War was increasingly open to doubt. This essay offers the elements of such an analysis and suggests some lines along which further inquiry might proceed.For at least a decade before his death in January 1960, Nevil Shute had been the best selling of English novelists. Altogether, his nearly two dozen works of light fiction have sold over 14 million copies. When he died his books were earning him an income of about $175,000 a year. Such extended popularity can hardly have been fortuitous. Without venturing too far into the psychology of literary response, it seems reasonable to conclude that Shute must have gauged accurately the issues and situations which, imaginatively presented, would interest his readers, and further, that he must have expressed in his work a pattern of values which conformed generally to their moral predispositions (or at least did not offend them.) Hence it should prove worthwhile to take a close and comprehensive look at his themes and ideas on the premise that they can tell us something useful about his audience.