Brits Didn’t Want You To Read This European Classic Since 1867

Captain Corcoran’s adventures are making a foray into English literature for the first time. And we are loving it!

The rediscovery of The Marvellous Adventures of Captain Corcoran is almost as exciting as the book itself. It’s a delicious adventure tale with the dashing Captain Corcoran and his hungry pet tiger Louison, who take on the India of 1857 - with the brewing sepoy revolution, a beautiful princess, gun fights and fisticuffs, and loads of irreverent humour.

Written by French author Alfred Assollant in 1867 - just 10 years after the revolution that shook the East India Company - The Marvellous Adventures of Captain Corcoran was immensely popular in its day. It was lauded by Jean Paul Sartre in his memoir and translated into all major European languages except English - thanks to its overt Anglophobia. But gradually over the years, the book went out of circulation.

That is till author and journalist Sam Miller, who has lived in India for many years, rediscovered the book on the streets of Paris and decided to translate it into English for the first time. Once Upon A Time in India is being published along with the beautiful original illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville.

Watch Sam Miller talk about rediscovering the French original and deciding to translate it.

We caught up with Miller for a tete-a-tete:

1. Why did you feel the book should be translated to English?

Looking back, it’s extraordinary that it wasn’t translated into English before – it’s a classic of European literature, in my view, and captures, not entirely accurately, but always interestingly, an important moment in Indian history and in the relationship between France and Britain. And it makes me laugh out loud.

2. Once Upon a Time in India was written in the nineteenth century. Do you feel the internet generation would be interested?

Great storytelling is as popular as ever, and this is simply a great story. Its humour in particular, feels very modern – and I challenge anyone, old or young, from any culture, not to laugh at its running jokes about Louison, the hungry tigress. And I think, more generally, the gloomy predictions of the death of the book have proved unfounded. Though of course lots of people may want to read the digital versions of Once Upon A Time in India.

3. The book seems be a wish fulfillment for the French who could never ace the English to rule India. What do you feel Assollant was trying to achieve here?

I actually think Assollant was teasing his own countrymen and women for their imperialist aspirations and failures. Assollant was a radical, a left-winger who despised monarchs and aristocrats – and the conclusion of the book is really about helping India become a democracy.

4. Why was the book so popular?

It’s a book of the imagination, a fantasy which is grounded in the real world. I think that is its real secret. And everyone remembers Louison.

5. Does the popularity of the book in other European languages confirm similar sentiments against the English among the European nations?

No, I think most other countries just took 19th century Anglo-French rivalry for granted. Other books of the period were often changed in their English translation to remove any Anglophobia – but there wouldn’t have been much left with this one. It’s slightly disconcerting to see Anglophobia increasing again in Europe following the recent suicidal decision by Britain to leave the European Union.

6. What were your concerns as a translator?

To tell Assollant’s story in a way that conveyed the humour and excitement of the original as accurately as possible. The French that Assollant uses is slightly old-fashioned but rarely complex, and this made it relatively easy to translate. I did think about changing some names, but in the end I didn’t. The name Louison for instance, is quite hard to pronounce for non-French speakers, and for the nineteenth-century Italian translation she became Lisotta.

7. Which is your favorite moment in the book and why?

I love the first scene with Louison, when she sauntered into a large room full of dull, pompous scholars who get the shock of their lives.

8. Assollant had never visited India. How did he research?

I think Assollant got most of his knowledge from newspapers – and I’ve been unable to find out what books about India he might have read. The discussion of Aurangzeb, for instance, suggests he read beyond what was in the press.

(Once Upon A Time In India is published by Juggernaut Books. Available on the Juggernaut app and in bookstores)