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Improvisations of Empire offers a historical, biographical and literary study of the life and writings of Thomas Pringle (1789–1834), the son of a Lowland tenant farmer in Scotland. It examines his Scottish journalistic and literary career, his emigration to the Cape Colony as the head of a party of Scottish settlers and his subsequent relocation to London where he gained prominence as the secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society and the editor of a popular annual, Friendship’s Offering. The central concern of the book is with Pringle’s poetry and his affiliated prose, and how these writings reflect the negotiation of his deeply conflicted colonial experience from the perspectives of his Scottish background, his shifting colonial locations and his subsequent period of residence in London.
“Improvisations of Empire shows how a careful reading of a literary oeuvre can transform how we think about the legacies of the colonial era. It rescues Pringle from the realms of liberal mythmaking, casting new light on a historical period in which nation-building, class-consciousness, abolition, Christian evangelism and colonialism were deeply entangled.” —Peter D. McDonald, Professor of English and Related Literature, University of Oxford, UK
“Thomas Pringle has been a long-time icon of South African liberalism. Matthew Shum’s new study presents a more complex figure caught up in the contradictions of empire by a career that comprised poetry, settler propaganda and abolitionism. Equally in command of close reading and relocations that include Scotland, Cape Colony and mid-nineteenth-century London, Improvisations of Empire is a truly eye-opening study.” —Jon Mee, Professor of Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York and British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow
“Improvisations of Empire is a remarkable achievement, which is likely to remain the definitive reading of Thomas Pringle for many years to come.” —David Attwell, Professor of Modern Literature, University of York, UK
“Shum has brought to life Thomas Pringle in all his capacities: Scottish Romantic poet, South African settler and London-based advocate for abolition. A rich and important study of a complex man.” —Jason Rudy, Professor of English, University of Maryland, College Park, USA
In his book Improvisations of Empire, Matthew Shum critically analyses the life and works of Thomas Pringle. Is the space that Pringle occupies in the history of South African Writing, one that he is justified in holding? Is there a need for re-assessment of his position? These are some of the questions that this book will lead the readers to ask. — Dhrubajyoti Banerjee, https://postcolonialinterventions.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/pi-5.2-dhruba-review.pdf, published June 30, 2020
Introduction; 1. Scotland: 1789–1820; 2. The Eastern Cape Frontier: 1820–1822; 3. Cape Town and Beyond: 1822–1825; 4. London: 1826–1834; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.