ANSTEY, F. [ie Thomas Anstey Guthrie]. - 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, ...

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 was not worth tackling.

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