Anglo-India's regional literature was both a practical and imaginative response to a pivotal period in the early colonialism of South Asia. Awarded as Honorable Mention of the Louis Gottschalk Prize by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS). Shortlisted for the Kenshur Prize by the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Indiana University, John Ben Snow Prize by the North American Conference on British Studies, Marilyn Gaull Book Award by the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association. During the later decades of ...
Read More
Anglo-India's regional literature was both a practical and imaginative response to a pivotal period in the early colonialism of South Asia. Awarded as Honorable Mention of the Louis Gottschalk Prize by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS). Shortlisted for the Kenshur Prize by the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Indiana University, John Ben Snow Prize by the North American Conference on British Studies, Marilyn Gaull Book Award by the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association. During the later decades of the eighteenth century, a rapid influx of English-speaking Europeans arrived in India with an interest in expanding the creation and distribution of anglophone literature. At the same time, a series of military, political, and economic successes for the British in Asia created the first global crisis to shepherd in an international system of national ideologies. In this study of colonial literary production, James Mulholland proposes that the East India Company was a central actor in the institutionalization of anglophone literary culture in India. The EIC drew its employees from around the British Isles, bringing together people with a wide variety of ethnic and national origins. Its cultural infrastructure expanded from presses and newspapers to poetry collections, letters, paper-making and selling, circulating libraries, and amateur theaters. Recovering this rich archive of documents and activities, Mulholland shows how regional reading and writing reflected the knotty geopolitical situation and the comingling of Anglo and Indian cultures at a moment when the subcontinent's colonial future was not yet clear. He shows why Anglo-Indian literary publics cohered during this period, reexamining the relationship between writing in English and imperial power in a way that moves beyond the easy correspondence of literature as an instrument of empire. Tracing regional and "translocal" links among Madras, Calcutta, Bombay, and settlements surrounding the Bay of Bengal, Before the Raj recovers a network of authors, reading publics, and corporate agents to demonstrate that anglophone literature adapted itself to geographical politics and social circumstances, rather than being simply imitative of the works produced in the English metropole. Mulholland introduces readers to figures like the Calcutta-born Eyles Irwin, the first man to sustain a literary career from India. We also meet James Romney, an army officer who wrote poems and plays, including a stage adaptation of Tristram Shandy. Alongside these men were anonymous female poets, hailed as the harbingers of an "anglo-asiatic taste," and captive adolescent Europeans who, caught up in the conflict with southern India's last independent ruler, Tipu Sultan, were forcibly converted to Islam, castrated, and made to cross-dress as "dancing boys" for Tipu's entertainment. Revealing the vibrant literary culture that existed long before the characters of Rudyard Kipling's best-known works, Before the Raj reveals how these writers operated within a web of colonial cities and trading outposts that borrowed from one another and produced vital interlinked aesthetics.
Read Less
Add this copy of Before the Raj: Writing Early Anglophone India to cart. $37.84, new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2021 by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New. Trade paperback (US). Contains: Illustrations, black & white. Includes: illustrations, black & white. Intended for professional and scholarly audience. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Before the Raj Writing Early Anglophone India to cart. $37.85, new condition, Sold by Paperbackshop rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bensenville, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2021 by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Add this copy of Before the Raj: Writing Early Anglophone India to cart. $51.67, new condition, Sold by Kennys.ie rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Galway, IRELAND, published 2021 by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Add this copy of Before the Raj: Writing Early Anglophone India to cart. $52.33, new condition, Sold by Booksplease rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Southport, MERSEYSIDE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2021 by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New. Trade paperback (US). Contains: Illustrations, black & white. Includes: illustrations, black & white. Intended for professional and scholarly audience.
Add this copy of Before the Raj – Writing Early Anglophone India to cart. $57.99, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2020 by Johns Hopkins Univ Pr.
