The Lotus and the Lion

“I have been hoping someone would write this book. The sustained readings of Corelli, Haggard, Blavatsky, Edwin Arnold, and Kipling are significant. Most works on Buddhism and Western literature tend to offer weak analogies—how an author's views are 'like' certain Buddhist ones—but J. Jeffrey Franklin actually traces the relationships. The Lotus and the Lion will have a unique place in criticism, forever changing our view of Victorian religion by placing it in its global context.”-James Najarian, Boston College

"What did Elizabeth Gaskell know about the Dalai Lama? What did Marie Corelli and H. Rider Haggard know about Buddhist ideas of reincarnation and karma? If your reflex answer is 'nothing,' The Lotus and the Lion will surprise you. The assumption that the Victorians knew very little about Buddhism or that such references form mere Orientalist gestures may, J. Jeffrey Franklin suggests, tell us more about ourselves than about them. Franklin chronicles his own 'eye-opening' encounter with the Victorian knowledge of Buddhism in a well-researched and intriguing book that should make scholars open their eyes in turn."—Lisa Surridge, University of Victoria