Starting in the 1750's, Clive was sent to pull out Britain's bacon in India, he was to avenge the so-called Black Hole of Calcutta, and his reworking of India was very British indeed until the modern uprisings of Gandhi and Nehru. The boys who read Henty never knew that Gandhi was on the horizon.
Written for young people, it is subtitled "Beginnings of an Empire", and gives a vivid picture of the events of the ten years which at their commencement saw English influence at the point of extinction in India, and which ended in the final triumph of the English both in Bengal and Madras.
Among the 80 books for boys written by Henty, who enjoyed great popularity through his death in 1902, his With Clive in India is one of the two or three most likely of mention.
