Indian Countryside – Percival C. Scott O’Connor (1908) (1st ed)

S$85.00

Indian Countryside – Percival C. Scott O’Connor (1908) (1st ed)

S$85.00

Title: Indian Countryside: A Calendar and Diary

Author: Percival C. Scott O’Connor

Publisher: Brown, Langham & Co. No date, research reveals it to be 1908. First edition.

Condition: Hardcover, no dust jacket. Fair. Covers worn with foxing and slight soiling. Some tanning and foxing. Ex-libris plate on endpaper. Binding sound, text unmarked. With black-and-white photographic plates. 271pp., 8″ by 5″.

SKU: indian-countryside Categories: , , Tag:

An entertaining series of literary sketches and descriptions, ordered according to the months of the year, of the author’s experiences in India. Specifically, he describes a year in the United Provinces, which today comprises the state of Uttar Pradesh and the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, where he travels, goes hunting, and observes life in the towns and villages. The book is an easy and entertaining read, with commentary on the weather, the nature, types of people and the food, but is lacking in specifics and the author often neglects to mention his exact location. Some anecdotes including old Indian folktales or history, government policy, and agriculture and industry, and gossip, such as the following excerpt:

“As I rode through a bazaar this morning, at sunrise, I observed many dead rats lying in the roadway, thrown out there by the shopkeepers, who were engaged in sweeping out their premises at the time. On questioning a man whether there was a plague in the village, I was told that there was none at present, but that THE ORDER HAD COME. Another man, in reply to my question, said, ‘At present there is no plague in this neighbourhood, but we hear the first case has been ordered for the 25th.”