ABSTRACT
The Great Rebellion of 1857 – which was perceived as a defining moment in colonial history and termed the ‘Epic of the Race’ by the Victorians – was a landmark event that deeply impacted nineteenth-century colonial discourse.1 It generated, from the 1860s onwards, the pseudo-historical genre of the ‘mutiny’ novel, which commanded an extensive readership in both colonial India and metropolitan Britain, reaching its peak of popularity during the period of high imperialism in the 1890s.2 Generally published in Britain by India-based colonialists, such as military officers, civil administrators and also by novelists located in the metropole – most of whom had never visited India – these texts generally projected the conflict between the colonisers and a large, hostile, ‘native’ population, along racially polarised lines.3
