Katherine Isobel Baxter is Reader in English Literature at Northumbria University. She is the author of 'Joseph Conrad and the Swan Song of Romance' (2010) and the co-editor of 'The Edinburgh Companion to the First World War and the Arts' (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 'Conrad and Language' (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and 'Joseph Conrad and the Performing Arts' (2009). She is general editor of the journal 'English'.

The volume is a remarkable contribution, not just to West African literature, but to legal theory itself and the role that literature plays in enacting and codifying law.

• Introduction: Literature, Imagination and the State of Exception1. ‘Natural Justice, Equity and Good Conscience’: History, Politics and Law in Nigeria, 1900-19662. ‘I Am the Law’: District Commissioner Fiction and the State of Exception 3. ‘Seeking a Legal Form’: Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson4. ‘Beast of No Nation’: Bribery, Corruption and Late Colonial Administration in No Longer At Ease5. ‘Written in the Interest of the People’: Representing the Law in Cyprian Ekwensi and Market Literature6. ‘Sensational Coverage of a Sensational Trial’: Treason, Journalism and the State7. Violence and the Law in A Man of the PeopleConclusion: Imagined StatesBibliography