Tiger Fire: 500 Years Of The Tiger In India

by Valmik Thapar

The tiger has captured the imagination of human beings from the beginning of recorded history. It has been feared, worshipped, admired, hunted, studied, photographed, written about, immortalized in art and poetry, and has enthralled king and commoner alike. Tiger Fire celebrates this magnificent predator by bringing together the very best non-fiction writing, photography and art on the Indian tiger from the first written description of a real-life encounter with the animal by the Mughal Emperor Babur in the sixteenth century to photographs and studies of the last of the species surviving in the wild today.

Conceived and edited by the worlds foremost authority on the Indian tiger, Valmik Thapar (who has also contributed many pieces and photographs to this volume), the books contributors are drawn from an array of renowned naturalists, writers, photographers and tiger enthusiasts down the centuries including Babur, Akbar, Franois Bernier, Thomas Roe, R.G. Burton, Walter Campbell, Thomas Williamson, F.W. Champion, Kesri Singh, Jim Corbett, Hugh Allen, Richard Perry, Arjan Singh, George Schaller, Kenneth Anderson, M. Krishnan, Peter Jackson, Fateh Singh Rathore, Kim Sullivan, Tejbir Singh, Jaisal and Anjali Singh, Aditya Dicky Singh, K. Ullas Karanth, Dharmendra Khandal and Dhritiman Mukherjee. Culled from over a million words (both published and unpublished) on the animal and several thousand photographs, the accounts and pictures assembled in this book show us the tiger in extraordinary and compelling detail.

The book contains stories and reports of tiger hunts, attacks on humans by tigers, fights between the tiger and other animals such as the leopard, the bison, the wild dog, the boar and the elephant, narratives about tigers rearing their young, finding mates and wild tigers forging bonds with humans.

Using his unequalled knowledge of wild tigers, derived from almost forty years of observing them in their natural habitat, Valmik Thapar has put together the most ambitious book ever published on the tiger in India. A lasting testimonial to an animal that has dazzled the human race, Tiger Fire will be treasured by everyone who possesses it.

Genres: Wildlife, Nonfiction

597 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Valmik Thapar was an Indian naturalist, conservationist and writer. He was the author of 14 books and several articles, and was the producer of a range of programmes for television. He was one of India's most respected wildlife experts and conservationists, having produced and narrated documentaries on India's natural habitat for such media as the BBC, Animal Planet, Discovery and National Geographic.

Reviews

[Amrendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely book. Valmik Thapar has compiled almost everything that has been written on tigers by everyone worthwhile in this 400 pages book. Tremendous compilation from the 1800s till now. A rarity/gem of a book.

Thapar has also recounted his own experiences in Ranthambore where he came as an escape from the drudgery of Delhi and his lacklusture marriage. How the forest consumed him and how tracking tigers became his rewarding preoccupation! He talks about all famous tigers of Ranthambore - Padmini, Akbar, Babur, Laxmi, Nick Year, Genghis, Nasty, Macchli et al, as also of their cubs.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

[Suhasini Srihari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thapar's research is simply amazing, and the tiger stories took me on a good ride. The collection of photographs and sketching too adds beauty to the book. This book is an inspiration to any wildlife enthusiast and to an avid tiger lover.

[Sanjay Banerjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The books contributors are tiger lovers/enthusiasts and naturalists for centuries ranging from Babur, Akbar, Francois Bernier,...,Campbell...to modern times Jaiswal Singh et al. Also contains breathtaking black and white photographs of tigers either at rest or while hunting!