The face of mother India

London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., [c. 1935]. Folio. [vi], 41, [1] pp., plus a further 192 pages of photographic images and descriptive letterpress. FIRST EDITION. Cloth binding with photographic image pasted on front cover, hinges tender but holding. With the plate of the Norfolk & Norwich Library on the paste-down and front cover, library markings on the spine, and a tipped in order form on the rear flyleaf. Item #15038

First edition. This work is by the same author of the notoriously racist and pro-imperialist book Mother India, published in 1927. Controversial even by the standards of the day, Katherine Mayo’s (1867-1940) first work became an intensely negative and enduring influence on the western imagination. Even Mahatma Gandhi commented on the injurious and erroneous ideas about his country and people. It was burned in India and New York. Undaunted, Mayo published this present volume some seven years later and described it as a “story-picture-book” with the “aim to give eyewitness of India as India stands today.” Though it contains a fascinating trove of photographic images of the daily life, culture, religion, people, and politics of India during the important post-World War I period, many of the captions, particularly those that accompany protest and political scenes, reveal a darker, more contemptuous tone in the guise of fact.

Price: $100.00

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