1944 book by Jim Corbett
Man-Eaters of Kumaon is a 1944 book written by hunter-naturalist Jim Corbett. It details the experiences that Corbett had in the Kumaon region of India from the 1900s to the 1930s, while hunting man-eating Bengal tigers and Indian leopards. One tiger, for example, was responsible for over 400 human deaths. "Man-Eaters of Kumaon" is the best known of Corbett's books, and contains 10 stories of tracking and shooting man-eaters in the Indian Himalayas during the early years of the twentieth century. The text also contains incidental information on flora, fauna and village life. Seven of the stories were first published privately as Jungle Stories.
Origins.
After much prompting by friends and family in 1935 Corbett finally put to paper seven accounts of his jungle encounters. These were then made into a small book and 100 copies were privately published under the title "Jungle Stories" and distributed amongst friends. The stories were titled, "Wild Life in the Village: An Appeal", "The Pipal Pani Tiger", "The Fish of My Dreams", "A Lost Paradise", "The Terror that Walks by Night", "Purnagiri and Its Mysterious Lights", and "The Chowgarh Tigers".
In 1943, whilst Corbett was recovering from typhus fever, his close friend and manager of India's branch of Oxford Press, R.E. Hawkins, convinced him to write a book for publishing. Using the 1935 "Jungle Stories" as a basis, Corbett wrote "Man-Eaters of Kumaon" (10 stories) which was first published by Oxford University Press in 1944.
Legacy.
Sales and success.
By May 1946 over half a million copies of "Man-Eaters of Kumaon" were in print. The book had been translated into four Western languages (including Spanish, Czech and Finnish) as well as six Indian languages. By 1980 the book went on to sell over four million copies worldwide.
Chhindwara court case.
In Chhindwara, India 1949 Jim Corbett's "Man-Eaters of Kumaon" was read out in court by defense for a murder charge. A villager by the name of Todal was found dead in the forest on 19 September 1949. The police's theory was that the accused conspired to murder the victim as he was in love with his wife, the defense was that the victim was killed by a man-eating tiger. Thus the defense produced Corbett's book and read passages relating relevant wounds and circumstances of an attack. The accused was later found not guilty.
Film adaptations.
In 1946 Universal Pictures brought the rights to the book and made the film "Man-Eater of Kumaon" (1948). The movie bore no relation to the book and centred on an American played by Wendell Corey who wounds a tiger and is later killed by it. Corbett saw the movie and claimed that the best actor was the tiger. In 1986, the BBC produced a docudrama titled "Man-Eaters of India" with Frederick Treves in the role of Jim Corbett. An IMAX movie, "", based on Corbett's books, was made in 2002. Corbett was played by Christopher Heyerdahl.
References.
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