Table Of ContentCOLONIAL INDIA
IN CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE
Children’s Literature and Culture Soon Come Home to This Island
Jack Zipes, Series Editor West Indians in British Children’s
Literature
For a complete series list, please go to Karen Sands-O’Connor
routledge.com
Boys in Children’s Literature and
Youth of Darkest England Popular Culture
Working Class Children at the Heart of Masculinity, Abjection, and the
Victorian Empire Fictional Child
Troy Boone Annette Wannamaker
Ursula K. Leguin Beyond Genre Into the Closet
Literature for Children and Adults Cross-dressing and the Gendered Body
Mike Cadden in Children’s Literature
Victoria Flanagan
Twice-Told Children’s Tales
Edited by Betty Greenway Russian Children’s Literature and Culture
Edited by Marina Balina and
Diana Wynne Jones Larissa Rudova
The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s
Literature The Outside Child In and Out of the Book
Farah Mendlesohn Christine Wilkie-Stibbs
Childhood and Children’s Books in Representing Africa in Children’s Literature
Early Modern Europe, 1550–1800 Old and New Ways of Seeing
Edited by Andrea Immel and Vivian Yenika-Agbaw
Michael Witmore
The Fantasy of Family
Voracious Children Nineteenth-Century Children’s Literature
Who Eats Whom in Children’s Literature and the Myth of the Domestic Ideal
Carolyn Daniel Liz Thiel
National Character in South African From Nursery Rhymes to Nationhood
Children’s Literature Children’s Literature and the Construction
Elwyn Jenkins of Canadian Identity
Elizabeth A. Galway
Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in
Mary Poppins The Family in English Children’s
The Governess as Provocateur Literature
Georgia Grilli Ann Alston
A Critical History of French Children’s Enterprising Youth
Literature, Vol. 1 & 2 Social Values and Acculturation in
Penny Brown Nineteenth-Century American
Children’s Literature
Once Upon a Time in a Different World Monika Elbert
Issues and Ideas in African American
Children’s Literature Constructing Adolescence in
Neal A. Lester Fantastic Realism
Alison Waller
The Gothic in Children’s Literature
Haunting the Borders Crossover Fiction
Edited by Anna Jackson, Karen Coats, Global and Historical Perspectives
and Roderick McGillis Sandra L. Beckett
Reading Victorian Schoolrooms The Crossover Novel
Childhood and Education in Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Its
Nineteenth-Century Fiction Adult Readership
Elizabeth Gargano Rachel Falconer
Shakespeare in Children’s Literature Humor in Contemporary Junior Literature
Gender and Cultural Capital Julie Cross
Erica Hateley
Innocence, Heterosexuality, and the
Critical Approaches to Food in Queerness of Children’s Literature
Children’s Literature Tison Pugh
Edited by Kara K. Keeling and
Scott T. Pollard Reading the Adolescent Romance
Sweet Valley and the Popular Young Adult
Neo-Imperialism in Children’s Literature Romance Novel
About Africa Amy S. Pattee
A Study of Contemporary Fiction
Yulisa Amadu Maddy and Donnarae Irish Children’s Literature and Culture
MacCann New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing
Edited by Valerie Coghlan and
Death, Gender and Sexuality in Keith O’Sullivan
Contemporary Adolescent Literature
Kathryn James Beyond Pippi Longstocking
Intermedial and International Perspectives
Fundamental Concepts of Children’s on Astrid Lindgren’s Work s
Literature Research Edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer
Literary and Sociological Approaches and Astrid Surmatz
Hans-Heino Ewers
Contemporary English-Language
Children’s Fiction about 9/11 Indian Children’s Literature:
Ethnic, Heroic and National Identities Representations of Nation, Culture,
Jo Lampert and the New Indian Girl
Michelle Superle
The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s
Literature Re-visioning Historical Fiction
Jan Susina The Past through Modern Eyes
Kim Wilson
Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature
for Young Readers The Myth of Persephone in Girls’
Maria Nikolajeva Fantasy Literature
Holly Virginia Blackford
“Juvenile” Literature and British Society,
1850–1950 Pinocchio, Puppets and Modernity
The Age of Adolescence The Mechanical Body
Charles Ferrall and Anna Jackson Edited by Katia Pizzi
Picturing the Wolf in Children’s Crossover Picturebooks
Literature A Genre for All Ages
Debra Mitts-Smith Sandra L. Beckett
New Directions in Picturebook Research Peter Pan’s Shadows in the Literary
Edited by Teresa Colomer, Bettina Imagination
Kümmerling-Meibauer, Cecilia Silva-Díaz Kirsten Stirling
The Role of Translators in Children’s Landscape in Children’s Literature
Literature Jane Suzanne Carroll
Invisible Storytellers
Gillian Lathey Colonial India in Children’s Literature
Supriya Goswami
The Children’s Book Business
Lessons from the Long Eighteenth Century
Lissa Paul
COLONIAL INDIA
IN CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE
SUPRIYA GOSWAMI
NEW YORK AND LONDON
First published 2012
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Taylor & Francis
The right of Supriya Goswami to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Goswami, Supriya.
Colonial India in children’s literature / Supriya Goswami.
p. cm. — (Childrens literature and culture ; 85)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Children’s literature, English—History and criticism. 2. Imperialism in
literature. 3. India—In literature. I. Title.
PR990.G67 2012
820.9'9282—dc23
2011052747
ISBN13: 978-0-415-88636-9 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-11222-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Minion
by IBT Global.
For Ma and Baba,
Rian and Reinhard
Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Series Editor’s Foreword xiii
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction Children’s Literature and Colonial India 1
Chapter 1 (En)countering Conversion: Missionary Debates and
Colonial Policy in Mary Sherwood’s The History of
Little Henry and His Bearer 15
Chapter 2 Resisting Tipu: Taming the Tiger and Coming of Age
in Barbara Hofl and’s The Captives in India 47
Chapter 3 The Post-Mutiny Imperial Boy Hero: Bridging
Cultural Divides in Sara Jeanette Duncan’s The Story
of Sonny Sahib 79
Chapter 4 ‘Macaulay’s minutemen’: The Mimic Men and the
Subversion of Law in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books 107
Chapter 5 Trivializing Empire: The Topsy-Turvy World of
Upendrakishore Ray and Sukumar Ray 135
Conclusion The Postcolonial Legacy 169
Notes 173
Works Cited 183
Index 191
ix
