India Inscribed is the first comprehensive study of European and British writing on India in the period 1600-1800, from the foundation of the East India Company to the defeat of Tipu Sultan. Teltscher charts Britain's transition from trading partner to colonial power through many sources previously ignored by scholars: travel accounts, missionary letters, histories, and parliamentary debates, as well as illustrations, novels, and poetry. She argues that writing about India is not monolithic or univocal, but that representations of the region are diverse, shifting, historically contingent, and frequently competitive.