Conclusion: Structures of Mobility

The conclusion recounts the key themes of emigration literature. Although the purposes, audiences and contexts of production and consumption of the genres and media explored in Imaginary Distance differ hugely, in their own ways they all influenced how British people thought about their place in the world and their extending kinship ties across time and space. Emigration literature engages with issues of mobility, flow and circulation of texts, peoples, ideas and things, but crucially, it is also defined by its emphasis on settlement, place and stability.