ABSTRACT

James Innes Minchin was born in Madras, the eldest son of James Minchin, a barrister. He attended the East India College at Haileybury in 1842–3, and returned to Madras in 1844 as a member of the civil service. Minchin published two volumes of poetry early in his career: Trafford: The Reward of Genius, and Other Poems ; and Sybil: A Soul’s History. These were both thoughtful and inward-looking works: the Literary Gazette described the hero of ‘Trafford’ as having the character of ‘a poetic, idealized and exalted Keats’. Minchin encountered some difficulty in having the work published, despite the contemporary interest in the topic: the preface states that ‘the Publishers to whom it was entrusted declined bringing it out, as the mild strictures it contains on some Public characters was likely, in their opinion, to injure their Indian connection’.