¹ Sady (1834). The Gulistan, or Rose Garden, Gladwin, F. (trans.), Parbury, Allen, and Co., London, pp. 1–2 Google Scholar.

² Gilmour, D. (2002). The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, p. 37 Google Scholar; Richards, D. A. (2010). Rudyard Kipling: A Bibliography, Oak Knoll Press & British Library, New Castle, Delaware and London, pp. A9–A15 Google Scholar.

³ Writing in the first person and sharing the same profession, Kipling seems to encourage his readers to identify him as the narrator. For discussions of narration and the frame narrative in Kipling's story, see also Draudt, M. (1984). Reality or Delusion? Narrative Technique and Meaning in Kipling's ‘The Man Who Would Be King’, English Studies, 65:4, p. 316 Google Scholar; Bascom, T. (1988). Secret Imperialism: The Reader's Response to the Narrator in ‘The Man Who Would Be King’, English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920, 31:2, pp. 162–173 Google Scholar; Kozloff, S. (1994). ‘Taking Us along on “The Man Who Would Be King”’ in Cooper, S. Perspectives on John Huston, G. K. Hall, New York, p. 186 Google Scholar.

⁴ Marx, E. (1999). How We Lost Kafiristan, Representations, 67, pp. 44–66 Google Scholar; Fowler, C. (2007). Chasing Tales: Travel Writing, Journalism and the History of British Ideas about Afghanistan, Rodopi, Amsterdam, pp. 34–48 Google Scholar.

⁵ Kipling, R. (1999). ‘The Man Who Would be King’ in Cornell, L. L. The Man Who Would be King, and Other Stories, Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 253 Google Scholar.

⁶ Huston, J. (1980). An Open Book, New York: Knopf, p. 345 Google Scholar.

⁷ Kozloff, ‘Taking Us along’, p. 187.

⁸ Huston, Open Book, pp. 345–346. Late in life, Kipling had himself considered undertaking collaborations with film-makers to adapt ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ and other works for the silver screen: Gilmour, The Long Recessional, p. 288. Of course, Kipling's story and Huston's adaptation have new significance in the wake of 11 September 2001. Graham, M. (2010). ‘Butch and Sundance in Afghanistan: The Man Who Would Be King’ in Graham, M. Afghanistan in the Cinema, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, p. 24 Google Scholar.

⁹ Harlan, J. (1842). A Memoir of India and Avghanistaun: With Observations on the Present Exciting and Critical State and Future Prospects of Those Countries, Dobson, J., Philadelphia Google Scholar. On casting for the film, see Huston, Open Book, pp. 351–352.

¹⁰ Macintyre, B. (2004). The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, New York, p. 5 Google Scholar. On the contemporary accounts, personal experiences, and individual acquaintances that inspired both Kipling's frame narrative and the names of his story's two heroes, see Richards, Rudyard Kipling, pp. 97–99, 104–105; Allen, C. (2009). Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling, Pegasus Books, New York, pp. 274–278 Google Scholar. For the most sophisticated analysis of Huston's film to date, see Kozloff, ‘Taking Us along’.

¹¹ Slotkin, R. (1990). The Continuity of Forms: Myth and Genre in Warner Brothers’ The Charge of the Light Brigade, Representations , 29, p. 3 Google Scholar.

¹² Steiner, G. (1975). After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 356 Google Scholar, 359.

¹³ For a comprehensive overview of the role of Persian in South Asia, see Alam, M. (2003). ‘The Culture and Politics of Persian in Precolonial Hindustan’ in Pollock, S. I. Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 131–197 Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Barth, F. (1969). ‘Pathan Identity and Its Maintenance’ in Barth, F. (ed.). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, Little, Brown, Boston, p. 129 Google Scholar; Bashir, E. (2006). ‘Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages’ in Encyclopaedia Iranica Online Edition: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/indo-iranian-frontier-languages-and-the-influence-of-persian, [accessed 22 November 2014]. For a detailed overview of Euro-American scholarship on the Pashto language, see Hakala, W. (2012). ‘Locating “Pashto” in Afghanistan: A Survey of Secondary Sources’ in Schiffman, H. Language Policy and Language Conflict in Afghanistan and Its Neighbors: The Changing Politics of Language Choice, Brill, Leiden, pp. 53–88 Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Crawford, R. (1998). ‘Introduction’ in Crawford, R. The Scottish Invention of English Literature, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 7–9 Google Scholar. For an overview of the class composition and anxieties of Scottish soldiers and administrators, and the antagonism between them and their English compatriots, see Bryant, G. J. (1985). Scots in India in the Eighteenth Century, The Scottish Historical Review, 64:177 Google Scholar, pp. 22–41. Despite only comprising about a tenth of the total population of the British Isles, ‘in Bengal in the decade after 1774 nearly fifty per cent of the East India Company's writers were Scots, and about the same proportion made up the officer and surgeon recruits of the Company's army’. Leask, N. (2005). Imperial Scots [Review of T. M. Devine, Scotland's Empire, 1600–1815], History Workshop Journal, 59, p. 267.

¹⁶ On the languages of Calcutta during the early years of East India Company rule, see Clark, T. W. (1956). The Languages of Calcutta, 1760–1840, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 18:3, pp. 453–474 Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Digby's study of Richard Burton, despite its focus on a later generation of colonial administrator, provides valuable insights into linguistic pedagogy: Digby, S. (2006). Richard Burton: The Indian Making of an Arabist, Orient Monographs, Jersey Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Das, S. K. (1978). Sahibs and Munshis: An Account of the College of Fort William, Orion Publications, New Delhi Google Scholar; Cohn, B. S. (1985). The Command of Language and the Language of Command, Subaltern Studies, 4, pp. 319–322 Google Scholar; Fisher, M. H. (2012). ‘Teaching Persian as an Imperial Language in India and in England during the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries’ in Spooner, B. and Hanaway, W. L. Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, pp. 328–358 Google Scholar.

¹⁹ See, for example, King, C. R. (1994). One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India, Oxford University Press, Bombay, pp. 25–29 Google Scholar; Saksena, R. B. (1927). A History of Urdu Literature, Ram Narain Lal, Allahabad, pp. 239–252 Google Scholar.

²⁰ Cohn, Language of Command, p. 321; Rahman, T. (2002). Language, Ideology and Power: Language Learning Among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India, Oxford University Press, Karachi, p. 142 Google Scholar; Fisher, ‘Teaching Persian’, pp. 337–348.

²¹ Lawrence, G. (1875). Reminiscences of Forty-Three Years in India: Including the Cabul Disasters, Captivities in Affghanistan and the Punjaub, and a Narrative of the Mutinies in Rajputana, John Murray, London, p. 2 Google Scholar.

²² Lawrence, Reminiscences, pp. 26–27.

²³ Eden, E. (1866). ‘Up the Country’: Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, Vol. 1, Bentley, London, p. 5 Google Scholar.

²⁴ Marzolph, U., Leeuwen, R., and Wassouf, H. (2004). The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California, p. 545 Google Scholar.

²⁵ Sale, F. (1843). A Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan, 1841–2, John Murray, London, pp. 428–429 Google Scholar. On the significance of literacy awareness (despite low rates of functional literacy) in early colonial South Asian society, see Bayly, C. A. (1996). Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 39–40 Google Scholar.

²⁶ Sale, Journal, pp. 72, 213, 341.

²⁷ Eyre, V. (1843). The Military Operations at Cabul, which Ended in the Retreat and Destruction of the British Army, January 1842; With a Journal of Imprisonment in Affghanistan, John Murray, London, p. 296 Google Scholar.

²⁸ Sale, Journal, pp. 341, 381–382; Lawrence, Reminiscences, p. 196.

²⁹ Sale, Journal, pp. 202–203.

³⁰ Lawrence, Reminiscences, p. 199.

³¹ Browne, E. G. (1964). A Literary History of Persia, Vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 525 Google Scholar.

³² Emerson, R. W. (1865). ‘Preface to the American Edition’ in Saʿdī. The Gulistan, or Rose Garden, Ticknor and Fields, Boston, p. viii Google Scholar.

³³ Remy, A. F. J. (1901). The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany, PhD Thesis Columbia University, New York, p. 79 Google Scholar. Early English translations, however, tended to bowdlerize content that was perceived as contrary to the morality of which it was supposed to serve as an exemplar.

³⁴ Remy, Influence, pp. 10–11; Matthee, R. (2010). The Imaginary Realm: Europe's Enlightenment Image of Early Modern Iran, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 30:3, pp. 453–454 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁵ Jones, W. (1775). A Grammar of the Persian Language, J. Richardson, London, pp. xiv–xvii Google Scholar.

³⁶ See, for example, Alam, M. and Subrahmanyam, S. (2004). The Making of a Munshi, Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East, 24:2, pp. 62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 66.

³⁷ As recently as a decade ago, the final exam for an introductory course in Persian designed for the Urdu MA students at a prominent Indian university consisted only of a translation of a passage from the original Persian Gulistān into Urdu. This author observed that many students made use of Urdu-language printed translations that they concealed on their persons for surreptitious consultation throughout the exam.

³⁸ Yohannan, J. D. (1950). Did Sir Richard Burton Translate Sadi's Gulistan?, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 3/4, pp. 185–188 Google Scholar; Davis, D. (2000). ‘Saʿdī c. 1215–1292: Persian Poet and Moralist’ in Classe, O. Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, London, pp. 1212–1214 Google Scholar; Newman, R. J. (2004). ‘Introduction’ in Newman, R. J. Selections from Saadi's Gulistan, Global Scholarly Publications & International Society for Iranian Culture, New York, pp. 1–19 Google Scholar.

³⁹ On Urdu translations of the Gulistān, see Saʿdī (1802). Bāgh-i Urdū: Tarjumah-i Gulistān, Afsos, M. S. A. (trans.), Hindustānī Chāpah-khānah, Calcutta; Amin, M. (1986). Urdu Translation of the Gulistan and the Bustan at Fort William College, Calcutta, Indo-Iranica, 36, pp. 44–52. An example of a Persian-Urdu glossary prepared for Indian readers of Saʿdī's works is Muḥī al-Dīn, M. (1879). Farhang-i Gulistān o Bostān musammá bĕh Ḥall al-‘Uqūd, Jalālī, Allahabad.

⁴⁰ Yohannan, J. D. (1987). The Poet Sa‘di: A Persian Humanist, University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland, p. 57 Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Browne, Literary History, p. 526.

⁴² This phrase comes from the valuable discussion of Ezra Pound's Cathay in Steiner, After Babel, p. 359.

⁴³ Barthes, R. (1968). L’Effet de Réel, Communications, 11, pp. 86–87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁴ Greenblatt, S. (1991). Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p. 6 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Frow, J. (2006). Genre, Routledge, London, p. 45 Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Emphasis added. Brydon, W. (1875). ‘Appendix: Copy of William Brydon's Account from Memory, and Memoranda Made on Arrival at Jellalabad, of the Retreat from Cabool in 1842’ in Lawrence, Reminiscences, p. 307.

⁴⁷ Trousdale, W. (1983). Dr. Brydon's Report of the Kabul Disaster and the Documentation of History, Military Affairs: The Journal of Military History, Including Theory and Technology, 47:1, pp. 26–27 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

⁴⁸ For instance, instead of the horsemen accompanying ‘us’, they are said to accompany ‘me’ in the 1969 reprint. Brydon, W. (1969). ‘William Brydon's Account from Memory and Memoranda Made on Arrival of the Retreat from Cabool in 1842’ in Macrory, P. A. The First Afghan War, Archon Books, Hamden, Connecticut, p. 162 Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Emphasis added.

⁵⁰ Among the memoirs penned by British witnesses to the battle at Khoord Kabul, the best known include: Sale, Journal; Eyre, Military Operations; Lawrence, Reminiscences; Mackenzie, H. D. (1884). Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier's Life: Lt.-General Colin Mackenzie, C.B., 1825–1881, David Douglas, Edinburgh Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Eyre, Military Operations, p. 313. A French translation prepared the following year deviates very little from Eyre's original, removing the idiomatic ‘in the same breath’ and providing further specificity to the verb ‘call’: ‘il étaità l’arrière-garde avec quelques chefs, et y ordonnait aux Ghildjis en persan de s’arrêter, et en pushtoo de faire feu [he was at the rear with several chiefs, and ordered the Ghildjis in Persian to stop, and in Pushtoo to fire]’. Emphasis in original. Eyre, V. (1844). Retraite et Destruction de l’Armée Anglaise dans l’Afghanistan, En Janvier 1842. Journal du Lieutenant Vincent Eyre, de l’Artill. de Bengale. Traduit de l’Anglais par Paul Jessé, Journal des sciences militaires (3e Série), 5, p. 247 Google Scholar.

⁵² On its coverage in the United States, see Isani, M. A. (1968). Melville and the ‘Bloody Battle in Affghanistan’, American Quarterly, 20:3, pp. 647–649 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ Brydon, ‘Brydon's Account from Memory’, p. 311.

⁵⁴ Sale, F. (1969). ‘A Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan, 1841–2’ in Macrory, P. A. The First Afghan War, p. 104n Google Scholar. This intelligence had been attributed to Pottinger earlier, however, and appears in fictionalized accounts as well. See Diver, K. H. M. (1913). The Judgment of the Sword: The Tale of the Kabul Tragedy, and of the Part Played therein by Major Eldred Pottinger, the Hero of Herat, Constable & Company, London, p. 352 Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Pottinger, G. (1983). The Afghan Connection: The Extraordinary Adventures of Major Eldred Pottinger, Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, p. 12 Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Pottinger, Afghan Connection, pp. ix–x.

⁵⁷ Hanifi, S. M. (2011). ‘Henry George Raverty and the Colonial Marketing of Pashto’ in Talbot, C. Knowing India: Colonial and Modern Constructions of the Past: Essays in Honor of Thomas R. Trautmann, Yoda Press, New Delhi, p. 100 Google Scholar n. 18.

⁵⁸ Kushev, V. (1997). Areal Lexical Contacts of the Afghan (Pashto) Language (Based on the Texts of the XVI–XVIII Centuries), Iran & the Caucasus, 1, p. 160 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁹ Arshi, I. A. (1958). ‘The Influence of Pashto on Urdu’ in Gupta, H. R., Kaushal, P. R., and Talwar, S. S. Essays Presented to Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Department of History, Panjab University, Hoshiarpur Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Examples may be be found in Dihlavī, S. A. (1974). ‘Muqaddamah-i Ṯabʿ-i Awwal-i Farhang-i Āṣafiyah’ in Dihlavī, S. A. Farhang-i Āṣafīyahi Vol. 1, National Akademi [Taraqqī-yi Urdū Board edition], New Delhi, pp. 60–64 Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Cited in Brailowksy, Y. (2012). Subscription and Proscription in Marlowe's Edward II, Études Épistémè, 21: http://revue.etudes-episteme.org/?subscription-and-proscription-in, [accessed 23 November 2014]. I am grateful to James Holstun for bringing this to my attention.

⁶² Bronner, Y. (2010). Extreme Poetry: The South Asian Movement of Simultaneous Narration, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 6.

⁶³ Sale, Journal, p. 84.

⁶⁴ Pottinger, Afghan Connection, p. 157.

⁶⁵ Sale, Journal, p. 102–103.

⁶⁶ Macaulay, T. B. (1970). Prose and Poetry, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 729 Google Scholar. On the debates surrounding the extension of English-language education in South Asia, see also Zastoupil, L. and Moir, M. (eds.) (1999). The Great Indian Education Debate: Documents Relating to the Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy, 1781–1843, Vol. 18, London Studies on South Asia, Curzon, Richmond Google Scholar; Hall, C. (2012). Macaulay and Son: Architects of Imperial Britain, Yale University Press, New Haven, pp. 225–234 Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ Raverty, H. G. (1855). A Grammar of the Pakhto, Pushto, or Language of the Afgháns: In which the Rules are Illustrated by Examples from the Best Writers, both Poetical and Prose, Together with Translations from the Articles of War, and Remarks on the Language, Literature, and Descent of the Afghán Tribes, J. Thomas at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta, p. v Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Lawrence, Reminiscences, p. 121.

⁶⁹ Ibid, p. 29.

⁷⁰ Steiner, After Babel, p. 360.

⁷¹ Lawrence, Reminiscences, pp. 132–133.

⁷² The classic history of how the British enacted their ‘disguise fantasy’ in their dealings with Central Asia is contained in Hopkirk, P. (1990). The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, Murray, London. The writings of Rudyard Kipling, of which his novel, Kim, is the most famous example, contain classic fictional accounts of this conceit.

⁷³ Burnes, A. (1843). Cabool: A Personal Narrative of a Journey to, and Residence in That City, in the Years 1836, 7, and 8, J. Murray, London Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Lawrence, Reminiscences, pp. 201–202.

⁷⁵ Ibid, pp. 204–205.

⁷⁶ Eyre, Journal, p. 188.

⁷⁷ Lawrence, Reminiscences, pp. 129–130. Compare with the slightly longer version of the same account reproduced in Mackenzie, Storms and Sunshine, pp. 250–251.

⁷⁸ Lawrence, Reminiscences, pp. 197–198.

⁷⁹ Ibid, p. 392.

⁸⁰ Waller, J. H. (1990). Beyond the Khyber Pass: The Road to British Disaster in the First Afghan War, Random House, New York, p. 244 Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Steiner, After Babel, p. 380. On the extensive critical literature theorizing the roles played by linguistic and other intermediaries in colonial and post-colonial settings, see Cohen, P. (2011). ‘The Power of Apprehending “Otherness”: Cultural Intermediaries as Imperial Agents in New France’ in Abbattista, G. Encountering Otherness: Diversities and Modern European Culture, Edizioni Università di Trieste, Trieste, pp. 225–226 Google Scholar n. 6. On the reliance of the British East India Company upon Indians, particularly Hindus, as comprador agents in Afghanistan, see Fisher, M. H. (2006). ‘Mohan Lal Kashmiri (1812–77): An Initial Student of Delhi English College’ in Pernau, M. The Delhi College: Traditional Elites, the Colonial State, and Education before 1857, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, p. 243 Google Scholar.

⁸² Fisher, ‘Mohan Lal Kashmiri’, pp. 239–240.

⁸³ Lal, M. (1846a). Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul: With His Political Proceedings towards the English, Russian, and Persian Governments, Including the Victory and Disasters of the British Army in Afghanistan, Vol. 2, Long, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London, pp. 429–430 Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Dupree, N. H. (1978). ‘Introduction’ in Lal, M. Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul, Oxford University Press, Karachi, p. viii Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ Dupree mentions, however, the unpublished diary of the Afghan leader Aminullah Logari stored in the then-newly constructed Afghan National Archives. Dupree, ‘Introduction’, pp. viii–ix. Whether it has survived to the present day is uncertain. William Dalrymple's recently published history of the First Anglo-Afghan war is a rarity among English-language works insofar as it draws extensively upon Persian- and Urdu-language material from archives in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan, as well as published historical chronicles of the period in Urdu and Persian. See Dalrymple, W. (2013). ‘Author's Note’ in The Return of a King: Shah Shuja and the First Battle for Afghanistan, 1839–42, Knopf, New York, pp. 441–448 Google Scholar. While I have not been able to examine most of these primary source materials, his history makes very little mention of British knowledge of Pashto or the role of Indians as linguistic intermediaries. Dalrymple, Return of a King, pp. 17, 334.

⁸⁶ Mohan Lal was trained in the latest methods of surveying land during a trip to Calcutta in 1834. Fisher, ‘Mohan Lal Kashmiri’, pp. 244–245.

⁸⁷ Faruqi, S. R. (2001). ‘Constructing a Literary History, a Canon, and a Theory of Poetry’ in Āzād, M. Ḥ. Āb-e ḥayāt: Shaping the Canon of Urdu Poetry, Pritchett, F. W. (ed. and trans.), Oxford University Press, New Delhi, p. 20 Google Scholar. See also the discussion of the ‘ideal “new-model Indian”’ in Fisher, ‘Mohan Lal Kashmiri’, pp. 234, 242, 246.

⁸⁸ Lal, M. (1846b). Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul: With His Political Proceedings towards the English, Russian, and Persian Governments, Including the Victory and Disasters of the British Army in Afghanistan, Vol. 1, Long, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London, p. ix Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ Lal, Amir Dost Mohammed Khan, Vol. 1, p. x.

⁹⁰ Lal, M. (1846c). Travels in the Panjab, Afghanistan, Turkistan, to Balk, Bokhara, and Herat; and a Visit to Great Britain and Germany, W. H. Allen & Co., London, pp. 102–103 Google Scholar. Also cited in Dupree, ‘Introduction’, p. xi.

⁹¹ Lal, Travels, p. 32.

⁹² See, for example, Gopal, S. (1992). Indians in Central Asia 16th and 17th Centuries, Address of the Sectional President, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 52^nd Session, pp. 219–231; Gommans, J. J. L. (1995). The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, c.1710–1780, Brill, Leiden, pp. 16–21 Google Scholar, 68–103; Levi, S. C. (2002). The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and its Trade, 1550–1900, Brill, Leiden, pp. 54–60 Google Scholar; Banerji, A. (2011). Old Routes: North Indian Nomads and Bankers in Afghan, Uzbek and Russian Lands, Three Essays Collective, Gurgaon Google Scholar.

⁹³ On the moneylenders of Shikarpur, a city located in present-day Pakistan, see note 92 and Dalrymple, Return of a King, p. 42.

⁹⁴ Lal, Amir Dost Mohammed Khan, Vol. 2, pp. 486–487.

⁹⁵ Spooner, B. (2012). ‘Persian, Farsi, Dari, Tajiki: Language Names and Language Policies’ in Schiffman, B. Language Policy and Language Conflict, pp. 89–117 Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Yapp, M. E. (1964). The Revolutions of 1841–2 in Afghanistan, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 27, p. 380 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁷ Dupree, ‘Introduction’, p. xxii.

⁹⁸ Norgate, J. T. (1970). ‘Preface by Translator’ in Pandey, S. R. From Sepoy to Subedar; Being the Life and Adventures of Subedar Sita Ram, a Native Officer of the Bengal Army, Written and Related by Himself, Vikas Publications, Delhi, p. xiii Google Scholar. For another possible eyewitness account, see the testimony given by the Gorkha infantryman, Motee Ram Havildar, and translated by T. MacSherry, reproduced in Havildar, M. R. (1879). ‘Appendix D: Extract from the Englishman Newspaper, of Calcutta, April 27th, 1842; Personal Narrative of Havildar Motee Ram, of the Shah's 4th or Ghoorka Regiment of Light Infantry, Destroyed at Char-ee-kar’ in Haughton, J. C. Char-ee-kar and Service There with the 4th Goorkha Regiment (Shah Shooja's Force), in 1841 an Episode of the First Afghan War, Provost and Co., London, p. 57 Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ For interesting parallels, see Fraser, G. M. (1969). Flashman, From the Flashman Papers 1839–1842, World Pub. Co., New York Google Scholar; Fraser, G. M. (1975). Flashman in the Great Game: From the Flashman Papers 1856–1858, Barrie & Jenkins, London Google Scholar; Murphy, D. (2004). Review: The Last Man: The Life and Times of Surgeon Major Brydon, CB by John C. Cunningham, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 14, p. 149 Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ Fraser's novels have inspired readers to produce a vast online apparatus of supplementary materials, albeit of an often ephemeral nature. D. Tibbetts, founder of the erstwhile Flashman Society of the United Kingdom, compiled a valuable Flashman Reader online, which sadly is no longer available (see http://members.aol.com/dtibbe2926/UKC/frl.html). The ‘Flashman-gmf’ Listserv, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flashman-gmf/, [accessed 23 November 2014], however, remains active with 143 posts in July 2012 alone.

¹⁰¹ Phillott, D. C. (1914). Annotated English Translation of Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl or “Visions of the Past”: The Textbook for the Higher Standard Examination in Hindustani, 2nd Edition, Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta, p. 112 Google Scholar.

¹⁰² Dalrymple, Return of a King, p. 460.

¹⁰³ Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. 77.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid, p. 78.

¹⁰⁵ Pandey, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 79, 116.

¹⁰⁶ I agree with Phillott that the verse in question is actually ‘quite apposite’. Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. 80.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid, p. 82.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid. Lunt inexplicably alters this statement to read ‘my accent always gave me away’. Pandey, Sepoy to Subedar, p. 121.

¹⁰⁹ Norgate, ‘Preface’, pp. xiii, xvi. This is also discussed in Thomas, F. W. (1912a). ‘Letter from F. W. Thomas to Sir G. A. Grierson, 13 November 1912’, Cleveland Public Library East India Company Manuscript Collection 091.92 L569 (hereafter CPL), ff. 12–15. See also Cadell, P. (1959). The Autobiography of an Indian Soldier, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 37, pp. 53–54 Google Scholar; Lunt, J. D. (1970). ‘Editorial Note’ in Pandey, Sepoy to Subedar, p. xvi Google Scholar; Safadi, A. (2010). From Sepoy to Subedar/Khvab-o-Khayal and Douglas Craven Phillott, The Annual of Urdu Studies, 25, p. 44 Google Scholar. For an attempt to reconstruct a timeline for the various editions of the work, see Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 44–48. I am in complete agreement with Safadi's conclusions regarding the inauthenticity of this work.

¹¹⁰ Slotkin, Continuity of Forms, p. 1.

¹¹¹ Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. xi; Norgate, ‘Preface’, p. xiii.

¹¹² Lunt, ‘Editorial Note’, p. xviii.

¹¹³ Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. xii; Norgate, ‘Preface’, p. xiii.

¹¹⁴ Yule, H. (1903). Hobson-Jobson: A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive, Crooke, W. (ed.), Murray, J. London, pp. 567, 610–612, 740–741Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ Baboo is defined by Yule as ‘a native clerk who writes English’. See Hobson-Jobson, p. 44.

¹¹⁶ Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. xv. This is transformed by Lunt into ‘suffered seven severe wounds’. Pandey, Sepoy to Subedar, p. xxix.

¹¹⁷ Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 57–60; Cadell, Autobiography of an Indian Soldier, pp. 5, 53; Pandey, Sepoy to Subedar, p. 26. This ‘perversion’ is transcribed as ‘Loneyocker’ by Cadell. Compare Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, pp. 18, 20, 21; Cadell, Autobiography of an Indian Soldier, p. 5.

¹¹⁸ Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. xi; Norgate, ‘Preface’, p. xiii. On this reference to James Grant's First Love and Last Love (1868), a romance of the so-called Mutiny of 1857, see Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, p. 54.

¹¹⁹ Cadell, Autobiography of an Indian Soldier, p. 52, refers to James Justinian Morier (1782–1849), best known for his novels Adventures of Hajji Baba, of Isphahan (published anonymously in 1824) and its sequel, Adventures of Hajji Baba, of Isphahan, in England (1828).

¹²⁰ Mason, P. (1974). A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, Its Officers and Men, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, p. 210 Google Scholar.

¹²¹ On this perceived lack, and for a corrective to this perception, at least from a Bengali-language perspective, see Chatterjee, P. (1993). ‘Histories and Nations’ in Chatterjee, P. The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey Google Scholar. For a broader discussion, see Dirks, N. B. (1990). History as a Sign of the Modern, Public Culture, 2:2, pp. 25–32 Google Scholar.

¹²² Mason, A Matter of Honour, pp. 208–209. On this passage and others, see Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 50–52.

¹²³ Slotkin, Continuity of Forms, p. 9. Likewise, Huston's wardrobe department went to great efforts to research the costumes and props for The Man Who Would Be King. Huston, Open Book, pp. 356–357.

¹²⁴ Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. 82. See also note 108.

¹²⁵ Thomas, ‘Letter to Sir G. A. Grierson, 13 November 1912’, ff. 13–15; Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 44–45.

¹²⁶ King, One Language, Two Scripts, p. 57; Chaudhry, N. A. (1977). Development of Urdu as Official Language in the Punjab, 1849–1974, Punjab Govt. Record Office, Lahore Google Scholar; Naim, C. M. (1984). ‘Prize-Winning Adab: A Study of Five Urdu Books Written in Response to the Allahabad Government Gazette Notification’ in Metcalf, B. D. Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, University of California Press, Berkeley Google Scholar; Green, N. (2009). Islam and the Army in Colonial India: Sepoy Religion in the Service of Empire, Cambridge University Press Cambridge, pp. 134–135 Google Scholar.

¹²⁷ On Phillott's career, see Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, p. 43.

¹²⁸ Pandey, From Sepoy to Subedar, pp. xvi–xvii.

¹²⁹ Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 47–48.

¹³⁰ These letters are housed in the East India Company manuscript collection at the CPL. See Repp, A. (2011). ‘Detailed Description of The Collection’ in Guide to the East India Company Manuscript Collection, http://ead.ohiolink.edu/xtf-ead/view?docId=ead/OCl0035.xml;chunk.id=dsc_1;brand=default, [accessed 23 November 2014]. Some of the corresponding letters by Grierson, written between 1912 and 1915, are discussed in Cadell, Autobiography of an Indian Soldier, p. 55.

¹³¹ Chapman, R. A. (2004). The Civil Service Commission, 1855–1991: A Bureau Biography, Routledge, London, p. 21 Google Scholar.

¹³² Though a later and abridged version, he is referring to instances of these usages appearing in Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, pp. 7, 14.

¹³³ On Mr Jabberjee, see Anstey, F. (1897). Baboo Jabberjee, J. M. Dent & Co., London Google Scholar; Rita, R. (1999). On Global English and the Transmutation of Postcolonial Studies into ‘Literature in English’, Diaspora, 8:1, p. 74 Google Scholar.

¹³⁴ Ward, G. E. (1912). ‘Letter from G. E. Ward to Sir G. A. Grierson, 9 November 1912’, CPL, ff. 5–6.

¹³⁵ Including tabeez (for ta’ ʿwīż, amulet), tosahkana (for toshah-ḳhānah, ‘wardrobe’; ‘store-room’), nikahana (apparently for nikāh-paṛhāʾī(?), ‘marriage fees’), pāk (for ‘a man restored to caste’), and zāt (for the Sanskrit-derived jātī, caste). See Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, pp. 5, 24, 26, 34, 35, 37. Safadi has analysed several of these terms in Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 57–59.

¹³⁶ Ward, ‘Letter to Sir G. A. Grierson, 9 November 1912’, f. 9.

¹³⁷ Thomas, ‘Letter to Sir G. A. Grierson, 13 November 1912’, ff. 12–15. The 1873 Urdu version is discussed in Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 44–45.

¹³⁸ Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. xii.

¹³⁹ Thomas, F. W. (1912b). ‘Letter from F. W. Thomas to Sir G. A. Grierson, 18 November 1912’, CPL, ff. 25–26.

¹⁴⁰ Norgate, F. M. C. (1912). ‘Letter from F. M. C. Norgate to Sir G. A. Grierson, 21 November 1912’, CPL, f. 33.

¹⁴¹ Lowe, F. E. (n.d.). ‘Letter from F. E. Lowe to Sir G. A. Grierson, 18 November’, CPL, ff. 69–71. Lowe does not identify the year. Assuming that it is the enclosure mentioned in the letter of 22 January 1914 by Sir Richard Burn in the same collection, Lowe's letter must have been written in 1913.

¹⁴² Cf. Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. 90. The nagrī script, written from left to right, has come to be associated with Hindi, and the Arabic script with Urdu.

¹⁴³ Phillott, D. C. (1912a). ‘Letter from D. C. Phillott to Sir G. A. Grierson, 17 November 1912’, CPL, ff. 16–23.

¹⁴⁴ Phillott, D. C. (1912b). ‘Letter from D. C. Phillott to G. A. Grierson, 20 November 1912’, CPL, ff. 29–31.

¹⁴⁵ Phillott, Ḵẖẉāb o Ḵẖyāl, p. xiii; Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 44–45.

¹⁴⁶ Cadell, Autobiography of an Indian Soldier, p. 55.

¹⁴⁷ Safadi appears to have arrived at a similar conclusion in Safadi, Sepoy to Subedar, pp. 49–50.

¹⁴⁸ Slotkin, Continuity of Forms, p. 4.

¹⁴⁹ Huston, Open Book, p. 351. On the imagery of the untamed Kāfirī in British literature and film, see Fowler, Chasing Tales, pp. 51–69.

¹⁵⁰ Kipling, ‘The Man Who Would be King’, p. 268. On changes Huston made to Kipling's character, see Kozloff, ‘Taking Us along’, p. 187.

¹⁵¹ Huston, Open Book, pp. 353–356; Kozloff, ‘Taking Us along’, p. 184. This tradition of anatopic cinematic representations of Afghanistan persists with the well-known Rambo III (1988) having been largely filmed in Israel, and the recent low-budget horror film, The Objective (2008), in Morocco.

¹⁵² Platts, J. T. (1884). A Dictionary of Urdū, Classical Hindī, and English, W. H. Allen & Co., London, p. 494 Google Scholar.

¹⁵³ Rudolf, R. de M. (ed.) (1902). Short Histories of the Territorial Regiments of the British Army, Including the Names of the Officers and Soldiers who Have Won the Victoria Cross or the Distinguished Conduct Medal, Harrison & Sons, London, p. 55 Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁴ Morgan, P. D. (1999). ‘Encounters between British and “Indigenous” Peoples, c. 1500–c. 1800’ in Daunton, M. J. and Halpern, R. Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples, 1600–1850, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, p. 49 Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁵ Handler, R. and Saxton, W. (1988). Dyssimulation: Reflexivity, Narrative, and the Quest for Authenticity in ‘Living History’, Cultural Anthropology , 3:3, p. 253 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Slotkin, Continuity of Forms, p. 18.

¹⁵⁶ Kipling, ‘The Man Who Would be King’, p. 259.