Selections from the early print-newspapers in colonial Calcutta, India.1780-1820: Print, public and the press.

This collection of primary newspaper texts -- printed between 1780 and 1820 -- allows us access to certain moments in the history of British colonization in India. These newspapers were printed in India, and subsequently, formed a sub-imperial realm of print induced print. A fundamental question that keeps on recurring is this: how did the transfer of culture take place? Even as we acknowledge that these early print newspapers had little commentary on the doings of the natives, for they were meant for a readership that was British, and resided in India, we realize that the desire for print was almost fetishistic.

An advertisement in the Calcutta Gazette in 1792, describes a Sanskrit translation of Kalidasa'a Ritusambara:

THIS BOOK is the first ever printed in Sanskrit; and it is by the Press alone, that the ancient literature of India can long be preserved: a learner of the most interesting Language, who had carefully perused on of the popular Grammars, could hardly begin his course of study with an easier or more elegant Work than the Ritusambara, or Assemblage of Seasons. Every line composed by Calidas is exquisitely polished and every couplet in the Poem, exhibits an Indian Landscape, always beautiful, sometimes highly coloured, but never beyond nature: four Copies of it have been diligently collated; and where they differed, the clearest and most natural reading has constantly had the preference.

CHAPTERS:

1 Print induced sub-imperial print
2 Literary endeavors
3 History and Translation
4 Establishing new printing presses and Libraries
5 Advertisements for Books
6 Public Debates on Print