ASHOK MALHOTRA. Making British Indian Fictions, 1772-1823.

Abstract

This book revisits postcolonial scholarship from the 1990s—the work of scholars such as Bart Moore-Gilbert, Felicity Nussbaum, Balachandra Rajan, Sara Suleri, and Kate Teltscher—to argue that British literature and cultural life was transformed by Britain's colonial interactions with India. Following this august group of scholars, Ashok Malhotra argues that the historical evidence shows that Britons frequently misunderstood India, even as depictions and representations of India became increasingly popular. As Britons attempted to integrate the existence of a colonial outpost in India with their own sense of Britishness, India provided a convenient reference point to re-establish British norms. The book draws from literary criticism to make a historical claim that as narratives about India proliferated in England from the 1770s to the 1820s, literature, theater, and art were democratized, reaching an ever-broader audience of consumers. Malhotra argues that a growing trade in literature fueled the public's desire for entertainment in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; to this end, a larger number of people went to the theater, read novels, and were exposed to prints, paintings, and textiles inspired by an imaginary of what India was like. As knowledge about India proliferated, Britons could feel confident that they knew India, even if they had never been there. The first three chapters work well to elaborate genres of representation that have not been juxtaposed in a single book: Malhotra is thus able to suggest that poetry was considered a form of higher status while novels and theater were less so, that art and paintings allowed the visualization of empire that was circulated back into theatrical sets. Malhotra focuses sporadically on the marketing, circulation, and reception of India narratives in Britain, which is a promising argument that is not fully sustained throughout. The latter three chapters are close readings of some important literary texts.