London Yatra (1888) and London Jubilee (1888) are translations of travel accounts written by Hardevi, who travelled from Lahore in Punjab to London to witness Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887. Hardevi’s writings, that have been buried in the archives, encode her sense of the ‘modern’ self through a journey to the heart of the empire as well as through a literary journey of writing and editorship in the nascent colonial print spheres. This book places her work in the context of late-nineteenth century Punjab that was marked by communal and language politics, increased mobility, and proliferation of transnational print networks. While this opened new possibilities for women to inhabit public and print discourses, undertake travel, mobilize their political agency, and establish associational and print networks, their presence has been elided over in literary and print culture histories of the time. The book fills this gap and foreground Hardevi’s writings as important precursor to the formation of feminist consciousness and an organized women’s movement in Punjab. It explores the intersections between transnational mobilities, travel writing, print networks, and gendered identity formation through new archival material.
