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Deborah Logan's most recent book offers the first sustained scholarly examination of the Indian Ladies' Magazine, a periodical edited by an Indian woman and aimed at Indian women readers, with some contributions from British and American writers. Logan's book provides an immensely valuable resource for literary scholars and historians interested in women's magazines, transatlanticism, and empire. This extensive consideration maps the history of the magazine in its cultural, social, and political milieux. Taking a transatlantic focus allows Logan to chart the flows between the Indian subcontinent and Britain during the magazine's long but truncated run. The magazine, which was published from 1901 to 1938, with a hiatus between 1918 and 1927, is clearly not a Victorian one. Yet Logan makes a case for the importance of this magazine in the lineage of Victorian periodicals by tracing the hefty influence of Victorian England—and indeed, Victoria herself—on the magazine's political persuasion, contributors, and editor, Kamala Satthianadhan.
The book is divided into eight chapters, each attending to a different context in which the magazine was situated. The first chapter provides a brief history of English women's magazines, before offering a substantive history of Indian women's magazines. Logan articulates how the growth of periodical publishing contributed to the empire's political instability during the time the Indian Ladies' Magazine was published. Along with several other Indian periodicals aimed at women readers, the Indian Ladies' Magazine was a major force in encouraging women's education and literacy efforts across the country. As the "first Indian women's English-language publication edited by a woman," its very existence was testament to the changing role of women in India's literary sphere (30). However, what Logan explains so well are the tensions between the changing ideals of Indian womanhood and Victorian gender roles, as exemplified by the Angel of the House and the New Woman. She demonstrates how Satthianadhan negotiated these tensions both in her editorials and in her choice...