... it is never entirely clear to what extent James’s behaviour is due to heredity or to his emotionally abusive upbringing. A shift in narrative tone is identified which moves from making allowances for James due to ‘nurture’ towards castigating him as bad by ‘nature’. In this way Braddon raises questions about...

...‘Race’ has no meaning in biology. Consequently, narratives of racism need to assess how and when scientists established their authority on race, and to explore how imperialism shaped the scientists’ thinking. Francis Galton‘s phrase, ‘nature versus nurture’, best captured the tension between...