A Myth Besieged: How Indian Political Violence Transformed a Popular Genre of British Fiction

Abstract: A popular genre in late-Victorian British print culture, Mutiny fiction upheld the cultural myth of the Indian Mutiny, as a New Imperial interpretation of the historical events of the Indian Rebellion. The myth rested on the relative passivity of the Indian population since 1857. Increasing levels of violence in Indian nationalism challenged the myth, especially after Madan Lal Dhingra's assassination of Sir William Curzon Wyllie on the steps of the Imperial Institute in London in 1909. In this essay I discuss how the sociopolitical discourse around British India changed after Dhingra's act of political violence and how that shift is reflected in Mutiny fiction. I focus on Charles E. Pearce's Love Besieged , published in 1909 and written in response to the uptick in Indian nationalist violence in the subcontinent in the two years prior.