The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Series Number 43)

Gautam Chakravarty explores representations of the event which has become known in the British imagination as the 'Indian Mutiny' of 1857 in British popular fiction and historiography. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources including diaries, autobiographies and state papers, Chakravarty shows how narratives of the rebellion were inflected by the concerns of colonial policy and by the demands of imperial self-image. He goes on to discuss the wider context of British involvement in India from 1765 to the 1940s, and engages with constitutional debates, administrative measures, and the early nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian novel. Chakravarty approaches the mutiny from the perspectives of postcolonial theory as well as from historical and literary perspectives to show the extent to which the insurrection took hold of the popular imagination in both Britain and India. The book has a broad interdisciplinary appeal and will be of interest to scholars of English literature, British imperial history, modern Indian history and cultural studies Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Series-title......Page 5 Title......Page 7 Copyright......Page 8 Contents......Page 9 Acknowledgements......Page 10 Glossary......Page 11 Introduction......Page 15 Chronicle to History......Page 33 Frames of Reference......Page 36 Reception and Reaction: Charles Ball, History of the Indian Mutiny (c. 1859)......Page 46 Lineages of an Aetiology......Page 63 The Aetiology of Resistance......Page 72 Romances of Empire......Page 86 Romantic Orientalism and the Missionary (1811)......Page 93 The Location of Anglo-India......Page 105 Beginnings, 1858–9......Page 119 The Mutiny Novel and its Narrative Sediments......Page 127 First-Person Accounts and the Mutiny Novel......Page 141 The Colonial Small War, Heroism and Propaganda......Page 150 Intelligence Failure and the Visions of Suture......Page 170 Imagining Resistance......Page 183 Epilogue......Page 195 Notes......Page 198 Bibliography......Page 229 Index list......Page 251 Chakravarty approaches representations of the mutiny from the perspectives of postcolonial theory as well as from historical and literary perspectives to show the extent to which the insurrection took hold of the popular imagination in both Britain and India. The book has a broad interdisciplinary appeal and will be of interest to scholars of English literature, British imperial history, modern Indian history and cultural studies."--Jacket

Gautam Chakravarty explores representations of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 in British popular fiction and historiography and within the wider context of British involvement in India. Drawing on diaries, autobiographies and state papers, Chakravarty demonstrates how narratives of the rebellion were inflected by the concerns of colonial policy and the demands of imperial self-image. The book has a broad interdisciplinary appeal.

This book explores representations of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 in British popular fiction and historiography and within the wider context of British involvement in India. Drawing on diaries, autobiographies and state papers, Chakravarty demonstrates how narratives of the rebellion were inflected by the concerns of colonial policy and the demands of imperial self-image