Memsahibs: British Women in Colonial India

For young Englishwomen stepping off the steamer | the sights and sounds of humid colonial India were like nothing they'd ever experienced. For many | this was the ultimate destination to find a perfect civil servant husband. For still more | however | India offered a chance to fling off the shackles of Victorian social mores.The word 'memsahib' conjures up visions of silly aristocrats | well-staffed bungalows and languorous days at the club. Yet these women had sought out the uncertainties of life in Britain's largest | busiest colony. Memsahibs introduces readers to the likes of Flora Annie Steel | Fanny Parks and Emily Eden | accompanying their husbands on expeditions | travelling solo across dangerous terrain | engaging in political questions | and recording their experiences. Yet the Raj was not all adventure. There was disease | and great risk to young women travelling alone; for colonial wives in far-flung outposts | there was little access to 'society'. Cut off from modernity and the Western world | many women suffered terrible trauma and depression.From the hill-stations to the capital | this is a sweeping | vividly written anthology of colonial women's lives across British India. Their honesty and bravery | in their actions and their writings | shine fresh light on this historical world.