Carpet Sahib by Martin Booth
Jim Corbett's classic stories of hunting the man-eating tigers of India have thrilled generations of readers and made him famous world-wide. Born in India in 1875, Corbett was at home in the jungles from an early age, killing his first leopard when he was only eight. Tigers were his most sought after prey but, in time, he began to turn toward conservation. From the mid-1920s he stopped shooting tigers for sport, only killing the man-eaters that plagued many Indian villages. In 1936 Corbett was instrumental in creating India's first tiger reserve--perhaps the world's first big-game park--and was a devoted conservationist for the remainder of his years.The Carpet Sahib is the story of this remarkable man. Martin Booth, who spent ten years of research on this definitive biography, follows Corbett's footsteps through the Himalayan jungles and foothills that provided the backdrop for some of his most hair-raising adventures. Booth brings to life a man of inestimable courage and integrity whose love for India, her people, and her natural treasures was intense. Today, Jim Corbett is revered in Northern India as the legendary holy figure who fought the devil in his disguise as a man-eating big cat, and by those who have so enjoyed his gripping collections of tales. This is the first book to reveal the man behind the myth.
Booth, Martin: - Martin Booth (1944-2004) was a British novelist and poet. He also worked as a teacher and screenwriter, and founded the Sceptre Press. He was born in Lancashire, but was brought up mainly in Hong Kong, which he left for Britain in 1964. He first made his name as a poet and as a publisher, producing slim volumes by British and American poets. His own books of verse include the two Knotting books collected here, as well as Killing the Moscs and Meeting the Snowy North Again. In the late 1970s Booth turned mainly to writing fiction. His first successful novel, Hiroshima Joe, was published in 1985, and contains passages set in that city during the Second World War. His lifelong interest in observing and studying wildlife resulted in a book about his childhood hero Jim Corbett, a big-game hunter and expert on man-eating tigers, and also a subsequent study of the endangered rhino. Later non-fiction books included a remarkable guide to Hong Kong, The Dragon and the Pearl, as well as biographies of Aleister Crowley and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. While his successful early novels tended to reflect his own past in an Africa and Asia touched by the British Empire, his later books reflected his interest in European locations, such as Italy, which features in the novel A Very Private Gentleman (1990, later filmed as The American, starring George Clooney in 2010). His penultimate novel, Industry of Souls, was set in Russia and was shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize. He died of cancer in 2004, shortly after completing Gweilo (released as Golden Boy in the USA), a memoir of his Hong Kong childhood written for his own children.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780094674004 |
| ISBN 10 | 0094674000 |
| Title | Carpet Sahib |
| Author | Martin Booth |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Constable and Company Ltd |
| Year published | 1986-11-17 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |