The region is presented to the world by writers and researchers who have not been exposed to the local literature. As far as creative literature is concerned, the Himalayans still speak largely for, and to, themselves.
Before 1950, because Nepal was virtually inaccessible to foreigners, almost every visitor who passed through published an account of his or her experiences. The earliest book-length treatment (Col. William Kirkpatrick´s An Account of the Kingdom of Nepaul) appeared in 1811, and was followed by several others by visitors such as Hector Oldfield, Perceval Landon and Sylvain Levi. None of these were works of creative literature as such, though they are still referred to by students and researchers.
Because Nepal remained independent during the period of British rule in India, it merited very few mentions in the works of popular Anglo-Indian authors like John Masters, Paul Scott or Rudyard Kipling. Though Kipling wrote about "the little yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu" and described the "facts of Khatmandu" as the "wildest dreams of Kew", he never set fdot in Nepal. For Kipling, "Khatmandu" was useful in tortuous rhyme-schemes. It also represented something remote, unknown and exotic: "to the north of Khatmandu" probably sounded to readers of Kipling´s day like somewhere near the edge of the known universe. In most British colonial fiction, the Himalaya meant hill stations like Shimla or Darjeeling, or occasionally Kashmir.
The early British travelers to Nepal usually presented its people and culture in a positive light. This may have been because most of them visited the kingdom as representatives of the British Government in some shape or form, and because their relations with the Nepali rulers were generally cordial. This was particularly obvious during the latter half of the Rana period British travelers had few good things tosay about the culture of less pliant kingdoms. Ashley Eden´s book (Political Missions to Bootan) is still notorious in Thimphu for its withering attacks on Bhutanese officials, whom Eden found "boorish" and "insolent" when he visited in 1863.