Author: ANSTEY, F. [ie Thomas Anstey Guthrie].
Title: A Bayard From Bengal. Being some account of the magnificent and spanking career of Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, Esq. B.A., Cambridge, by Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., Calcutta University, ...
Description: London, Methuen 1902. Octavo publisher's cloth with mounted illustration; eight plates by Bernard Partridge, 40pp publisher's list dated August 1902. A touch of browning and minor signs of use, a rather good copy. ¶ First edition of this spanking example of comedy that can no longer be funny; a slur from the caption on the frontispiece to the very last word. Anstey specialised in fish out of water - or stranger in a strange land - situation comedy, often fantastic, and I get him mixed up with his imitator with a parallel pseudonym, R. Andom who specialised in identity exchange. Here we follow the adventures of our Indian hero in Oxford and highish society as portrayed by a fellow Anglophile and drawn by a last minute stand in for the desired Royal Academician, whose ignorance of things British needs constant correction. All this sparked a letter to the Spectator from an Andra Singha in September 1902 complaining that Anstey's mockery of Indian writings in English was too easy a target, tired and misguided. Anstey's mockery of Indians themselves went unnoticed.

Keywords: literature fiction humour c20th England India race racism