"My First Brush with a Tiger" - Early Indian printing - "The Bengal Monthly Sporting Magazine" - Calcutta 1833 - J.H.Stocqueler

"The Bengal Monthly Sporting Magazine

&

General Register"

-Printed in Calcutta

-Number IV - May - Published 1st June 1833

-Samuel Smith and Co- Hare Street

-1833

-Written by J.H.Stocqueler

-Complete and unsophisticated copy. First few gatherings loose.

-TP, ii, 161-224, [Racing Calendar] xvi, [Bengal General Register] 101-130, 35-45

This very rare Calcutta imprint is one of the earliest Sporting journals published in India. The work was edited by James Stocqueler - a larger-than-life character who worked in England, India and America producing popular works as an editor.

The subject matter of this printing is unusual compared to most of the printing of the era as it contains information about the pastimes of the ruling classes. Many of the accounts are extremely colonial and exploitative - including "Baiting a Leopard", "My First Brush with a tiger" and "Bear Shooting in the Northern Circars". More banal pursuits include Horse racing at Agar, trout fishing and "My Dog Carlo". Racists stereotypes are often employed in the descriptions of Indians. Unsettling at times, this is an important early record of the British ruling class during the early Raj.

The entry of "My First Brush with a Tiger" begins with the ridiculous and sneering "I had scarcely lighted my second Cheroot when..."

This series is rare - with only 8 entries on Worldcat (Singapore, Huntington, Chicago, Yale, Boston, Leiden, British Library, National Library of Australia).