ABSTRACT
Major Henry Shakespear’s The Wild Sports of India (1860, 1862) and Captain James Forsyth’s The Highlands of Central India (1889) are the texts under discussion in this chapter. Both writers experienced the shift of power from the East India Company to the British Crown in 1858. These works were popular books of their time and show how hunting wild animals in India was a part of the daily life of British officials and such accounts were written to impress and attract other young men to come to India. A close textual analysis reveals the individual writer’s perception of human and nonhuman animals in India, the organization of the hunt and the disruption of existing ecological structures. The occasional responses of nonhuman animals documented in these works reflect their sentience.
