Customer Reviews

The Jim Corbett Omnibus

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This book is a collection of some of Jim Corbett's books, and it is really worth the expense to anyone who enjoys a good read. A bit of tongue-in-cheek, but very factual and understated, this book also describes life in India when it was the jewel in the British crown.

The author is a widely respected "shikari" who is ever ready to help simple village folk against wild animals who have turned vermin. However, he loves nature, and one can see how he revels in describing natural landscapes. He went on to become a very well-known conservationist, and the Indian Government has honoured him by naming the area he has described in his books as a National Park, with his name.

In the books, he describes how he learned to be a woodsman, and describes outdoor living in great detail. He describes a time when motoring was very rare, when the easiest way to travel was to depend on one's own two feet and a lot of "knee grease". His loving descriptions of nature, landscapes, jungles and jungle lore mark him as an environmentalist beyond any of today's known figures.

A must-read for anyone who enjoys reading.

I have read all three of the books included in this omnibus many times over the space of thirty years. Each is a superb read filled with suspense, observations on nature, and a genuine respect for India and it's people. These are not books about hunting for the sake of senseless slaughter. While Corbett vividly communicates a sense of suspense and excitement he continually returns to the theme of sympathy for the plight of the impoverished villagers who are terrorized by the man-eaters he hunts. There is no macho posturing in Corbett's accounts, there is heartfelt regret each time he pulls the trigger to end the rampage of another killer.

I have been an avid reader of Jim Corbett for the past decade. Though he hasn't authored as many books so as to demand a decade, his story-telling is exquisite and therefore begs you to pick up his memoirs again and again. What were previously an assortment of separate short stories have now been compiled into this grand collection.

Armed with but a rifle, Corbett narrates in intricate detail how he managed to hunt down some of the deadliest man-eaters, deep in the northern jungles of pre-independent India. As much as it is a classic, one needs to remember that the events described herein, actually occurred! The narration seamlessly alternates between the romantic splendor of the Himalayan foothills and the imminent danger lurking not far behind. Corbett magnanimously describes in great detail the courage displayed by several individual men, women and children of these jungles when taking on man-eaters at close quarters. That the events described are factual makes you shudder even while sitting in the quiet comfort of your living room.

Parallels could be drawn between Corbett and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" due to fact that they both decipher more than the average individual when given the same set of information. Much like Holmes, Corbett interprets the gender, age, physical characteristics, possible injuries (and cause thereof), direction of approach etc. of the man-eater by just studying it's pug marks. The only incorrect assumption he makes is that tigers do not have a sense of smell. I recently found out that this was untrue. Nevertheless, to the armchair hunter, this triviality can be ignored. An excellent read.

I've been reading--and rereading--Corbett for more years than I can remember. They not only tell the tales of his hunting man-eating tigers and leopards but tell of his wonderful love of nature, the land and the simple hill people of India. His descriptions and attention to detail are remarkable. You can practically smell the Himalayan foothills that he loved so much.

Corbett, although "just" a public servant had an unusual combination of talents and virtues. His woodcraft was exceptional; his stamina phenomenal; his courage phenomenal; and his talent as a writer...unique. Corbett puts the reader in his own skin as he tracks beasts that would like nothing better than to sink their teeth in his throat. The reader is actually present as Corbett comes on the scene of a recent tiger kill as evidenced by the single shapely leg of a young woman. You feel his terror as a man-eating leopard, in the dead of night, rejects his goat bait and tries to rip Corbett from his machan high in a tree.

You suffer with Corbett as he tries to maintain his lonely all-night vigil over a tiger-killed buffalo as malaria shakes his body apart and you rejoice with him as he fights the mighty mahseer from pool to pool in the icy waters of the Himalayas. You weep with Corbett as poor, frightened people thank him for ridding them of beasts that have destroyed lives and the economies of entire regions.

At the same time you get to know Corbett the field biologist and nature lover. He bore no animosity for the man-eaters he hunted to death. He entirely recognized that they were a part of nature whose only "crime" was to develop a taste for the "wrong" kind of food. He speaks of the nobility of the tiger, the sinuous beauty of the leopard and bemoans the fact that these creatures were gradually being eradicated. Nevertheless he takes justifiable pride in saving the lives of so many people and is grieved that he couldn't have saved many more.

Some people have questioned as to whether Corbett did all these things or whether, like Capstick, he was simply a gifted writer. I can't confirm the authenticity of all the stories but, all I can say, is that the government of India--that has no particular love for British colonialism--chose to honor this particular Englishman by naming a national park--a park containing many tigers and leopards--in his honor.

Ron Braithwaite, author of Mexican Conquest novels, "Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"

Jim Corbett underwent a remarkable development. From the "sportive" rifle-man to a conservator of wildlife! This book comprises a selection of his adventures as a relentless hunter of man-eating tigers and panthers and saviour of whole village communities. His former house in Naini Tal has been in a deplorable condition, the last time I saw it. It seems as if the memory of a man who saved the lives of thousands of people in the region of Kumaon, by cleansing the environment from the insatiable, mischievous man-eaters should fade away.
In the literature his name lives on in fact. Corbett, an anglo-indian, who spent most of his life in Northern India, when India was a part of the Empire, had to leave his homeland out of health problems. He did not survive this very long. The mountains and jungles in the North of India were exchanged by the mountains and grassy slopes of Kenya, whereas the people could not be exchanged. He missed the Kumaonis, his people, of who he had become one himself. They were like him a peculiar human breed.
The one who travels today into that region which was Corbetts hunting grounds, Rudraprayag, Almora, Naini Tal, will state that there are only a few natural retreats for wildlife. Only in the Jim Corbett National Park are vast tracks of forests preserved and further away in the high mountain area. Instead the stream of pilgrims, interrupted for some time when the panther of Rudraprayag had his high time, is stronger than ever. They are travelling most of the time in busses. The paths which Corbett used can still be trekked. Notwithstanding Kumaon is refreshing free of the tourist streams that abound in neighbouring Nepal.

Jim Corbett was no proper writer. He had to be persuaded to write down his stories, he, who was in reality no friend of big or many words. This succeeded very well, so well that one thinks to have been put in his place sometimes when he is relating events. The time runs back and one sees oneself sitting on a "machan", on which a tired hunter is still waiting in the early morning after a long night for the beast to pass by, the beast that scared to fright and terror the whole region. One is rushing with him on paths, across thorny bush, over mountain brooks and slopes to the villages where fate has again cruelly stroke. One is crouching with him, with the same impatience, in a sticky hut of the aborigines and resists in the cold of the night to raise, lurking on every sound: is this what is heard beside the whimper of the child a scraping at the door? Stems the touch at the toe from a rat or a cat`s paw?
This all is thrillingly written. There are still accidents between Tigers and mainly leopards even today, but then the police will come with automatic gunnery to find the potential disturber.
Yet, everybody who travels in this area and stays out in the open at night, deems sometimes to scent something of a gun smoke of old times and to hear sounds he should better miss to hear.

When I was l5 years old, my mother brought the book home for me from
the library. I enjoyed it then. Throughout the years I have been looking
for it but could not locate it in libraries oe stores. I'm looking forward
to reading it again. By the way I'm now past the age of 75 years.

I LOVE Jim Corbett's books. I've been a BIG fan of his for a long time. I own most of his books in paperback editions that are showing their age. As my kids are getting old enough to read on their own, I didn't want to trust them with my aging paperbacks, so I bought this hard back. The price was very reasonable and with "The Second Jim Corbett Omnibus" includes all of his published writings. This is an outstanding value and a wonderful addition to anyone's library. I bought both editions and am VERY impressed with them.

The book by Corbett is engaging and descriptive. One of those books that is hard to put down.

Very good writing from a brave, dedicated and modest man, who appreciated and clearly loved India - it's people, animals, and natural surroundings. The different stories are similarly themed, but I read them all with pleasure.

Well, let me think... all of these titles are great reads, so all of them together are even better!

Really this guy is a great writer.