Toru Dutt

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The writings of TD (who was born in Bengal, India, where her family originated) reveal the powerful influences both of Bengali culture and of a British colonial education. Writing for only a brief period during the late nineteenth century (she died tragically young), she nevertheless produced two volumes of poetry and translations in English, two novels (one in French, the other in English, incomplete), and several critical essays.
Black and white photograph of Toru Dutt, 1921. She stands holding a chair back in front of what looks like a wooden dresser, turned to her right but looking straight at the camera. She wears a heavy ruffled gown; her hair is parted in the middle and pulled back.

Milestones

4 March 1856
TD was born at 12 Manicktollah Street in Calcutta, India, the youngest of three children.
Dutt, Toru. “Selected Poetry of Toru Dutt (1856-1877)”. University of Toronto Libraries. Representative Poetry Online (RPO), edited by Ian Lancashire.
30 August 1877
In CalcuttaTD , like her siblings before her, died of pulmonary tuberculosis, at the age of twenty-one.
Dutt, Toru. “Selected Poetry of Toru Dutt (1856-1877)”. University of Toronto Libraries. Representative Poetry Online (RPO), edited by Ian Lancashire.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
1882
TD 's Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan was published nearly five years after her death with an introductory memoir by noted British critic Edmund Gosse , who also chose the title for the collection.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Sage, Lorna, editor. The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
British Library Catalogue.

Biography

Birth and Family

4 March 1856
TD was born at 12 Manicktollah Street in Calcutta, India, the youngest of three children.
Dutt, Toru. “Selected Poetry of Toru Dutt (1856-1877)”. University of Toronto Libraries. Representative Poetry Online (RPO), edited by Ian Lancashire.

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