''Oakfield; or, Fellowship in the East'' is a

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

William Delafield Arnold William Delafield Arnold (7 April 1828 – 9 April 1859) was a British author and colonial administrator. He was the fourth son of Thomas Arnold who was the headmaster of Rugby School. His older brothers included the poet and critic Matthew Ar ...

, first published in 1853. The book is one of the earliest novelistic accounts of life in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, and its plot strongly mirrors the biography of its author. Set in India about the time of the First Afghan War, the novel describes the unhappy experiences of the eponymous Edward Oakfield, a graduate of

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

who enlisted with the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

's military service because he tired of the metaphysical debates dominating that university. In India, Oakfield is disgusted by what he sees as an absence of Christian gentlemanliness among the Company's military officers, and he soon retreats to the comradeship of a few like-minded people.

Major themes

The novel is an indictment of the moral standards of the British regiments in India. Indeed Arnold, fearing a backlash, originally published the novel using the pseudonym Punjabee. The second edition, of 1854, reveals the author's identity and adds a preface which functions as an apologia.

References

D Goonetilleke, "Forgotten Nineteenth-century Fiction: William Arnold's Oakfield and William Knighton's Forest Life in Ceylon" ''The Journal of Commonwealth Literature'' 7 (1972): 14-21.

External links

''Oakfield; or Fellowship in the East''
(2nd Edition) at

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1853 British novels Novels set in India Novels set in British India {{1850s-novel-stub