The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination

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.

• Offers insights into British representations of the Indian mutiny of 1857 in fiction and historical accounts • Provides insights into the wider context of British involvement in India • Will be of interest to a broad range of scholars in literature, history and cultural studies

Acknowledgements; Glossary; Introduction; 1. From chronicle to history; 2. Reform and revision; 3. Romances of empire, Romantic orientalism and Anglo-India: contexts, historical and literary; 4. The \'Mutiny\' novel and the historical archive; 5. Counter-insurgency and heroism; 6. Imagining resistance; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; Index list.

\'… the book will have an appeal beyond literary scholars among historians and social anthropologists.\' The Times Higher Education Supplement