Bunga-Bunga on the Dreadnought: Hoax, Race, and Messages

Abstract

The 1910 Dreadnought hoax was famous in its day and continues to be well-known today, in large part because it involved both the young Virginia Woolf and the celebrated prankster Horace DeVere Cole. Currently, we see the affair as a ludic blow against authority, or as an anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchy stunt. In 1910, however, the joke was as much about race as it was about authority. Far from being anti-colonialist, the hoax was originally read as reasserting contemporary attitudes about race and empire.