
Confessions of a Thug
Philip Meadows Taylor(Author)
Kim A. Wagner(Editor)
Oxford University Press
Published on 11. July 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
608 pages
978-0-19-885464-7 (ISBN)
Description
'You have given a faithful portrait of a Thug's life, his ceremonies, and his acts'
Often overshadowed by Kipling's Kim or Forster's A Passage to India, Philip Meadows Taylor's forgotten classic, Confessions of a Thug (1839), is nevertheless the most influential novel of early nineteenth-century British India.
This was the first dramatic account to expose a European readership to the fantastic world of the murderous Thugs, or highway robbers, who strangled their victims and who have ever since been a stable of Western popular culture. Writing in the voice of a captured Thug, Taylor presents an Orientalist fantasy that is part picaresque adventure and part colonial expose. Confessions of a Thug offers a unique glimpse of the colonial world in the making, revealing how the British imagined themselves to be omniscient and in complete control of their Indian subjects. This unique critical edition makes available a fascinating and significant work of Empire writing, in addition to excerpts from the original colonial texts that inspired Taylor's narrative.
Often overshadowed by Kipling's Kim or Forster's A Passage to India, Philip Meadows Taylor's forgotten classic, Confessions of a Thug (1839), is nevertheless the most influential novel of early nineteenth-century British India.
This was the first dramatic account to expose a European readership to the fantastic world of the murderous Thugs, or highway robbers, who strangled their victims and who have ever since been a stable of Western popular culture. Writing in the voice of a captured Thug, Taylor presents an Orientalist fantasy that is part picaresque adventure and part colonial expose. Confessions of a Thug offers a unique glimpse of the colonial world in the making, revealing how the British imagined themselves to be omniscient and in complete control of their Indian subjects. This unique critical edition makes available a fascinating and significant work of Empire writing, in addition to excerpts from the original colonial texts that inspired Taylor's narrative.
Reviews / Votes
I strongly recommend the purchase of this novel to casual readers who want to enjoy an adventure that has some hints of history. * Pennsylvania Literary Journal *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 191 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
426 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-885464-7 (9780198854647)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Philip Meadows Taylor | Kim A. Wagner
Confessions of a Thug
E-Book
07/2024
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€11.99
Available for download

Philip Meadows Taylor | Kim A. Wagner
Confessions of a Thug
E-Book
06/2024
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€11.99
Available for download
Previous edition
Philip Meadows Taylor | Patrick Brantlinger
Confessions of a Thug
Book
07/1998
Oxford Paperbacks
€7.43
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Persons
Kim A. Wagner is Professor of Global and Imperial History at Queen Mary, University of London. His research is situated at the cusp of Imperial and Global history, focussing on knowledge, crime and resistance in British India, and on colonial violence and warfare in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. His publications include Thuggee: Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India (Palgrave, 2007); Stranglers and Bandits: A Historical Anthology of Thuggee (OUP India, 2009); The Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies and the Making of the Indian Uprising (Peter Lang, 2010); The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857 (Hurst/OUP/Penguin, 2017); and Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre (Yale, 2019).
Author
Editor
Professor of Global and Imperial History, Queen Mary University of London
Content
Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Philip Meadows Taylor
THE CONFESSIONS OF A THUG
Appendix
Glossary
Explanatory Notes
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Philip Meadows Taylor
THE CONFESSIONS OF A THUG
Appendix
Glossary
Explanatory Notes