Kismet in Kenya
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1932. 12mo. Cloth. 319 p. 1st American ed. Publisher's file copy, so stamped in front free endpaper, bottom edges & front panel of the dust wrapper. Fine in near fine, price clipped d.w. with light wear at extremities. [62308]
Example of the "Kenya novel," a sub-genre of romance fiction which was popularized mainly by Florence Riddell & Nora St. John Beale. The Kenya novel is credited by C. J. D. Duder ("Love and the Lions: The Image of White Settlement in Kenya in Popular Fiction, 1919-1939," in "African Affairs" 1991) with being a key element in formulating a favorable image of the white settlers in Kenya with the British reading public. According to Duder, both Riddell & Nora K. Strange, another leading exponent of the genre, were "white supremacists with an added tinge of anti-semitism and admiration for Mussolini's version of fascism.Their novels reek of unapologetic racism and the attentive reader can find everything from the habitual use of the word 'nigger' to jokes centering on tight-fisted 'Hebrews' in Kenya novels"
Price: $85.00