India’s Literary History: Essays on the Nineteenth Century

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This book, the first major reassessment of literary history in nineteenth-century India for a generation, opens up this emerging field of literary history to nineteenth-century India. Its essays emphasise the making of literary history, the process of canonisation, the reinvention of literary tradition, and the writing of literary history itself.

A central premise of the book is that when European literary cultures arrived in India, they came into contact with popular performance forms and complex literary cultures that had their own histories.

The essays also reach beyond the obvious genres and include little-known texts, situating them within a wider debate about national origins, linguistic identities, and political entitlements.

Print culture and oral tales, drama and gender, library use and publishing history, theatre and audiences, detective fiction and low-caste novels are among the topics covered.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Stuart Blackburn

Stuart Blackburn is Senior Lecturer in the South Asia Department at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Vasudha Dalmia

Vasudha Dalmia is Professor of Hindi and Chair of the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley. She has researched and published widely on Hinduism, colonial and post-colonial Hindi literature, medieval Indian religiosity, and modern Indian theatre. Her book, The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu Harischandra and Nineteenth Century Banaras, examines the life and writings of a major Hindi writer of the nineteenth century as the focal point for an examination of the intricate links between politics, language, culture, religion and nationality.