This book examines the relationship between the British Empire and Victorian literature. It explains how Victorian literature both gave expression to pro-imperialist themes, and engaged with forms of opposition to the empire like abolitionism and early Indian nationalism. Victorian literature is analyzed in relation to key debates in postcolonial studies about Orientalism, race, gender, Marxism, subalterneity, imperial historiography, mimicry and representation. And there are in-depth examinations of works by major Victorian authors in an imperial context, notably those of Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Disraeli, Tennyson, Yeats, Kipling and Conrad.