Talk:Letters of an Indian Judge to an English Gentlewoman

Fact or Fiction?

My original amendments of 20th and 21st December 2009 said that the British Library catalogue mentioned the possibility that these letters were fictional, and written by Dorothy Black. This was changed by Homechurch on 4/6/10 to the suggestion that she was the recipient of the letters, i.e. the "English Gentlewoman" of the title. Checking with the British Library's online catalogue today, I see that they state that the original publisher's note said they had satisfied themselves that the letters were genuine. The latest edition, by Mandarin (1992), introduces the idea that she was the author. Looking under her name, the book is listed among her numerous publications.

What evidence is there that this is a work of fiction? When it came out in 1934, an Indian appeal court judge would not have been a minor figure in that society: especially as he attended a round table conference (i.e. negotiating independence)in London. He reveals that his family pressed him to take bribes and that he helped his son commit suicide in a secure hospital with the connivance of the medical superintendent while facing trial on a capital charge: these would have been scandalous revelations at the time and would have made headlines and stayed on in the history books.

As circumstantial evidence we can include the matter of his starting his career in Burma, where Dorothy Black also resided for a time.

Claiming that a work of fiction is factual is almost a tradition: look, for example, at Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (also a series of letters). The matter is said to have been explored by the Australian academic Syd Harrex and described more accessibly in K K Ruthven's "Faking Literature," which I have yet to read. Another approach would be to see how the book was reviewed when it came out: perhaps something like the British Humanities Index might help. NRPanikker (talk) 19:35, 14 February 2016 (UTC) NRPanikker (talk) 19:37, 14 February 2016 (UTC)