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Jim Corbett was every inch a hero, something like a "sahib" Davy Crockett: expert in the ways of the jungle, fearless in the pursuit of man-eating big cats, and above all a crack shot. Brought up on a hill-station in north-west India, he killed his first leopard before he was nine and went on to achieve a legendary reputation as a hunter.
Corbett was also an author of great renown. His books on the man-eating tigers he once tracked are not only established classics, but have by themselves created almost a separate literary genre. Man Eaters of Kumaon is the best known of Corbett's books, one which offers ten fascinating and spine-tingling tales of pursuing and shooting tigers in the Indian Himalayas during the early years of this century. The stories also offer first-hand information about the exotic flora, fauna, and village life in this obscure and treacherous region of India, making it as interesting a travelogue as it is a compelling look at a bygone era of big-game hunting.
"It was not only the ripping-yarn action of the stories and the engrossing narratives that held me, I was just as much taken by the man who recounted them. Through the most riveting episodes, his compassionate character and quiet voice seemed personally to speak to me [...] The book has never paled, never dated, and I have never forgotten its significance or the astonishing, gentle man who wrote it."
– Martin Booth, The Sunday Times
