The Importance of Fiction to the Raffles Library, Singapore, during the Long Nineteenth-Century

This article explores the development of the Raffles Library in Singapore, and the role of its founder, Stamford Raffles, from the early nineteenth through to the mid-twentieth century. Throughout the period 1904 to 1938 about 80 per cent of the library's subscribers were Europeans, mostly of British descent, since the book collection consisted of English books. The article will show how the Raffles Library became a colonial enclave, a reading club, or research library for the elite European community and had an impact on the lives of the British colonies in Singapore.