The Travels of Dean Mahomet: An Eighteenth-Century Journey through India - Softcover

Mahomet, Dean; Fisher, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520207173 ISBN 13: 9780520207172

Publisher: University of California Press, 1997

Synopsis

This unusual study combines two books in one: the 1794 autobiographical travel narrative of an Indian, Dean Mahomet, recalling his years as camp-follower, servant, and subaltern officer in the East India Company's army (1769 to 1784); and Michael H. Fisher's portrayal of Mahomet's sojourn as an insider/outsider in India, Ireland, and England. Emigrating to Britain and living there for over half a century, Mahomet started what was probably the first Indian restaurant in England and then enjoyed a distinguished career as a practitioner of "oriental" medicine, i.e., therapeutic massage and herbal steam bath, in London and the seaside resort of Brighton. This is a fascinating account of life in late eighteenth-century India―the first book written in English by an Indian―framed by a mini-biography of a remarkably versatile entrepreneur.

Travels presents an Indian's view of the British conquest of India and conveys the vital role taken by Indians in the colonial process, especially as they negotiated relations with Britons both in the colonial periphery and the imperial metropole.

Connoisseurs of unusual travel narratives, historians of England, Ireland, and British India, as well as literary scholars of autobiography and colonial discourse will find much in this book. But it also offers an engaging biography of a resourceful, multidimensional individual.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"A richly documented portrait and a model of historical detective work." (Dane Kennedy, University of Nebraska)

About the Author:

Michael H. Fisher is Professor of History at Oberlin College. He is the author of A Clash of Cultures: Awadh, the British, and the Mughals (1987) and Indirect Rule in India: Residents and the Residency System, 1764-1858 (1991).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0520207173
• ISBN 13: 9780520207172
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256