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.

This edition has been edited and annotated by Professor Matthew Kaiser, with an all-new historical and contextual introduction.