“The Silent Flag in the New Fallen Snow”: Sara Jeannette Duncan and the Legacy of the South African War

The South African War (1899-1902) was the largest war involving Canadian soldiers between Confederation and the First World War. It ignited controversies in Canada that echoed throughout the twentieth century. The war is integral to Sara Jeannette Duncan’s The Imperialist (1904) and Cousin Cinderella (1908), two of only a few Canadian novels to depict the war’s political and cultural impact on Canada. Although Duncan’s novels are typically read as works of late-Victorian social realism, this essay argues that the novels, published in the wake of the South African War, are also quintessential postwar novels concerning ideology and conflict in the nascent twentieth century.