Tracing the literary relationship between British women and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Kathryn Freeman argues that women writers, distinct from their male counterparts, interrogated Orientalist distortions of India through the lens of gender.

Tracing the literary relationship between British women and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Kathryn Freeman argues that women writers, distinct from their male counterparts, interrogated Orientalist distortions of India through the lens of gender. Her study invites us to rethink the Romantic paradigm of canonical writers as replicators of Orientalists' cultural imperialism in favor of a more complicated stance that accommodates the differences between male and female authors with respect to India.

"Freeman's close readings allow readers to sense the multi-storeyed nature of the texts she discusses, where each level, whether authorial, narratorial, paratextual, or historical, raises possibilities for other readings that do not make these writers simply into cookie cutter versions of a historical feminism in an intimate relationship with imperialism." - Betty Joseph, Rice University