All Roads Lead to Constantinople: Re-historicizing Greek–British Relations in The Travellers and The Last Man

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Tertius Kendrick’s The Travellers (1825) and Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826). Although neither novel is set during the Greek War of Independence, this chapter suggests that both narratives implicitly ask readers to consider what it would entail for contemporary Britain to assist Greece, for Greece to become a Westernized nation, and for Britain and Greece to develop closer transnational relations. This chapter intervenes in discussions of Romantic Hellenism by examining the ways that British Romantic writers engage with Greece’s Byzantine (Roman and Medieval) past, a period that has been largely ignored in scholarly discussions of Romantic Hellenism (which tend to focus on the Ancient Greek past).