Household Words: An Account of the ‘Bengal Family Library’

Abstract

The idea of a publisher’s series was slow to arrive in colonial Bengal. Though the first half of the nineteenth century saw rapid growth in almost all genres of letters, the protocols of the printed book were yet to crystallise. While government and missionary printing followed the conventions of the European book, indigenous printing was still in the process of negotiating the often untidy transition from manuscript to print. By the middle of the nineteenth century, it had carved out its own niche and market share, much to the alarm of European missionaries and Bengali reformers alike. The reformist lobby regarded print as an instrument of social, intellectual and political change, and abhorred popular genres for their alleged vulgarity and obscenity. These genres were encompassed by the general term Battala, which was actually a location in north Calcutta but soon became a metonym for the cheap literature produced in that area. Much of Battala printing dealt unabashedly in sub-genres such as erotica, scandals, current events, doggerels and songs, leading to much hand-wringing in politer circles, and a gradually hardening resolve to purge Bengali literatures of such ‘impurities’.