Images of India in British Fiction: Anglo-India vs. the Metropolis

This book investigates how India was portrayed in British novels and short stories during the heyday of the British Raj. In the tradition of post-colonial studies such as Edward Said’s Orientalism, it will be considered in how far fiction by Rudyard Kipling and other writers supported the institution of the Raj by establishing and spreading certain ideas about the Indian sub-continent and the Indian people. In addition, Said’s claims concerning the consistency of what he labels Orientalist discourse will be challenged to a certain degree, as British authors who lived in India are more likely to present an image of the country that is at least partly more detailed and nuanced than portrayals of the Indian scene created by writers who never saw the sub-continent.