The book analyzes the growth in British women's published works about India before 1857 and uses it as the basis for an examination of various aspects of their role in India. The corpus of the work comprises some 80 authors, many of the texts were previously unknown, and very few had been subjected to academic study. They extend far beyond travel writing and the work of memsahibs, which have so far been the main focus of interest, to include other groups, notably missionaries, and other genres such as fiction, poetry, drama, advice manuals, educational material, history, and translations.