18th Century Calcutta printing Joseph Cooper - "The Indian Observer" by Hugh Boyd - Calcutta 1795

18th Century Calcutta printing by Joseph Cooper - "The Indian Observer" - Hugh Boyd

- Printed in Calcutta by Joseph Cooper, 1795

– First collected edition, written by Hugh Macaulay Boyd and compiled by Andrew Burchet Bone.

– Octavo format: Contemporary calf binding neatly rebacked, with ownership inscription of Lt Colonel Henry Conran

– Complete: [12], xxxv, [5], 273, ii, [1 blank], with engraved portrait frontispiece

The text for this work contains the collected columns 1-53 of the Hircarrah which had originally been established by Boyd and published in newspaper/journal format in Madras (Chennai) from 1793 to 1794. The Hircarrah meant messanger in Persian, the local language of power and administration at the time. The journal discussed all which was fashionable to the elite europeans of the time including philosophy, the French, poetry, the theatre, ancient Greece and Rome, music, marriage, and British Indian Society.

Hugh Boyd (1746–1794) was an Irish writer, journalist and colonial official. After graduating from Trinity College Dublin, he worked as a lawyer in London, where his eloquence and wit allowed him to move in the London political circles of Goldsmith, Garrick, Burke and Reynolds. After spending his wife's inheritance and becoming short of money, he travelled to India to enter into the service of Lord Macartney. He undertook a diplomatic mission to the King of Kandy in Ceylon, but was captured by the French on his return and was imprisoned on Mauritius. He later became a pioneer of Indian journalism, founding the Indian Observer and Hircarrah at Madras in 1793, before his untimely death in Madras from fever in 1794.

Boyd unfortunately died before the publication of this compilation, and the text includes a description of the life of Hugh Boyd by Lawrence Dundas Campbell (i-xxxv) and a monody on his death. An engraving of Boyd is present opposite the title page.

The owner of this volume, Lt Colonel Henry Conran (c1767-1829), served in India and Ceylon in the 52nd Foot (and later the 96th Foot) from 1793. He subsequently left India and fought in the War of 1812 and is listed as the Commander of forces on Jamaica in 1817.

The printer of this work, Joseph Cooper, was a well established printer of journals in Calcutta. He was initially involved in publishing the Calcutta gazette in 1785, but soon went on to publish the weekly Calcutta Chronicle as well as the Calcutta Telegraph. Printing had only started in Calcutta in 1777 so was in its infancy in 1795 when this work was published. In his preface, the editor apologises for delays and typographical errors, referring to the “yet infant state of the press in India”. 

This work is uncommon with OCLC and ESTC stating 8 copies only in institutions: NYPL, Oklahoma, California State Library, Library of Congress, Case Western Reserve, Bibliotheque de Quebec, NLScotland, BL.

Reference: Shaw Printing in Calcutta 284