Overview

This volume brings together an unusual collection of British captivity writings – composed during and after imprisonment and in conditions of siege. Writings from the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 are well known, but there exists a vast body of texts, from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Burma, and the Indian subcontinent, that have rarely been compiled or examined. Written in anxiety and distress, or recalled with poignancy and anger, these siege narratives depict a very different Briton. A far cry from the triumphant conqueror, explorer or ruler, these texts give us the vulnerable, injured and frightened Englishman and woman who seek, in the most adverse of conditions, to retain a measure of stoicism and identity. From Robert Knox’s 17th-century account of imprisonment in Sri Lanka, through J. Z. Holwell’s famous account of the ‘Black Hole’ of Calcutta, through Florentia Sale’s Afghan memoir, and Lady Inglis’s ‘Mutiny’ diary from Lucknow, the book opens up a dark and revealing corner of the colonial archive. Lucid and intriguing, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asia, colonial history, literary and culture studies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Pramod K. Nayar (University of Hyderabad, India)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge India
Weight:   0.566kg
ISBN:  

9781138232686

ISBN 10:   1138232688
Pages:   378
Publication Date:   09 November 2016
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Preface Introduction 1 An historical relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies (1681) ROBERT KNOX 2 A genuine narrative of the deaths of English gentlemen (1764) J.Z. HOLWELL 3 Personal narrative of two years’ imprisonment in Burmah (1860) HENRY GOUGER 4 A journal of the disasters in Afghanistan (1843) LADY [FLORENTIA] SALE 5 The military operations at Cabul (1843) VINCENT EYRE 6 From the Calcutta Gazette (1791) WILLIAM DRAKE 7 A narrative of the sufferings of James Bristow (1793) JAMES BRISTOW 8 A narrative of the military operations on the Coromandel Coast (1789) INNES MUNRO 9 The captivity, sufferings and escape of James Scurry (1824) JAMES SCURRY 10 An authentic account of the treatment of English prisoners (1785) HENRY OAKES 11 Siege of Lucknow: a diary (1892) LADY [JULIA] INGLIS

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Author Information

Pramod K. Nayar teaches in the Department of English at the University of Hyderabad, India. His most recent books include The Indian Graphic Novel: Nation, History and Critique (Routledge, 2016), The Transnational in English Literature: Shakespeare to the Modern (Routledge, 2015), the edited Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology (2015) and the Postcolonial Studies Dictionary (2015). A book on human rights and literature and an edited five-volume collection Indian Travel Writing, 1830–1947 are forthcoming, besides essays on celebrity studies, graphic biographies and colonial etiquette books.

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