The Broken Road

The Broken Road is the fourth novel to appear after Charles Pearce's Love Besieged (2003), Maud Diver's Lilamani (2004), and Margaret Wilson's Daughters of India (2007), as part of OUP India's initiative to publish lesser-known Raj fiction. A.E.W. Mason's The Broken Road, first published in 1907, is a gripping romance of the Frontier-considered the 'real India' by many British writers, and the preferred setting for Raj novels of romantic adventure. Through the relationship between its two main characters-Dick Linforth, scion of a family of Empire-builders and Shere Ali, the prince of Chitistan-it explores the sense of duty that drove successive generations of British men to sacrifice their lives for the goals of the Empire, and the contentious issue of educating Indian princes in England. Of particular interest to the postcolonial reader is that The Broken Road, while undoubtedly reinscribing the image of a confident and secure Empire characteristic of much Raj fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, also offers unusual insights into the human cost-on both sides of the racial divide-of producing that image. This new edition of The Broken Road, which includes a detailed introduction, a chronology of A.E.W. Mason's life, maps, and extensive explanatory notes, will appeal to students and teachers of colonial and postcolonial literature, as well as general readers interested in Indian history.
About Author :
A.E.W. Mason (1865-1948) was a prolific and extremely popular writer whose career spanned six decades. Two of his novels, The Broken Road (1907) and The Drum (1937), are set in India. Ralph Crane is Professor of English and Head of the school of English, Journalism and European Languages at the University of Tasmania, Australia.
Contents :
Contents Acknowledgements Introduction By Ralph Crane and Radhika Mohanram A Note on the Text A Chronology of A.E.W. Mason Maps The British Empire in India in the Early 20th Century The North-West Frontier in the Early 20th Century The Dauphine Alps THE BROKEN ROAD Explanatory Notes