Confessions of A Thug

Set in a British prison in Sagar, India in 1832, and inspired by actual events, Confessions of a Thug (1839) is the picaresque tale of north Indian Thug Ameer Ali, who strangled over seven hundred people in his lifetime. Kidnapped as a child by a criminal gang devoted to the Hindu goddess Kali, Ameer Ali recounts how he rose to prominence as a Thug leader, how he fell from power, and how he took vengeance on his enemies. Hero and villain, victim and victimizer, Ameer Ali is a unique figure in Victorian literature: a charming mass murderer. The most famous Anglo-Indian novel of the nineteenth century, Confessions of a Thug is a canonical example of British Orientalism, as well as an unsettling invitation to early Victorian readers to identify with an unrepentant predator.