Delusions and Discoveries: India in the British Imagination, 1880-1930Verso, 1998 - 274 pages No cultural phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s in Britain was more curious than the Raj revival, with its slew of films and fictions, its rage for memorabilia of imperial rule in India, and its strange nostalgia for a time and a world long since past. Today, with the arrival of so-called postcolonial studies, that revival lives on in a strange afterlife of critical study. Writing some years before Raj nostalgia became all the rage, and out of the rather different political and intellectual climate of 1960s national liberation struggles, Benita Parry produced what remains one of the landmark studies of British attitudes towards India. Available for the first time in Paper, Delusions and Discoveries authoritatively surveys the mix of racist and jingoistic prejudices that dominated the writings of Anglo-Indians from Flora Annie Steele and Maud Diver to Kipling and beyond. The book also includes treatments of more liberal thinkers like Edmund Candler, Edward James Thompson and E. M. Forster, as well as a new preface by the author situating her work in relation to recent studies of the culture of colony and empire. |
Contents
Introduction | 29 |
The BritishIndian Encounter | 35 |
Five Lady Novelists | 78 |
Copyright | |
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Adela Quested Aghori Alden alien Anglo Anglo-Indian attitudes autobiography Aziz bazaar believe Bengali Benita Parry Brahman Britain's British rule British-Indian Candler Carnehan caves century character Christian claim colonial discourse colonialist creed critics cultural customs dominant Dravot dreams E.M. Forster East educated Empire England English Englishman European experience expression feel fiction Findlay Flora Annie Steel Forster gender gods Hill of Devi Hindu Hinduism human ideology imperial Indian Army Indian Civil Indian Civil Service interest Jain joined the ICS Kipling Kipling's Lalun lama land lives Marabars Maud Diver Michael O'Dwyer mind mission missionary moral Mother Muslim nation native never novel official Passage to India political postcolonial Punjab race racial relationship religion religious Rudyard Kipling rulers sense servants sexual Siri Ram social soul spirit Steel suggests temple things Thompson thought tion traditions understand West Western women writing wrote young