Nitikatha (Part 1)
Nitikatha (Part 1)
Ram Comul Sen and Tarinicharan Mitra · 1818
131 fables, many from Aesop
The Calcutta School-Book Society was founded in Calcutta on 4 July 1817 to write, publish and supply textbooks for schools and madrasas. David Hare was one of its prime movers. Its managing committee joined sixteen Europeans with eight Indians, among them Radhakanta Deb, Ram Comul Sen, Mrityunjay Vidyalankar, Tarinicharan Mitra and Maulvi Aminullah.
Its first books were printed at the Serampore Mission Press and other presses, later at the Society's own press. By 1821 it had issued 126,464 books and pamphlets in Bengali, English, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and Urdu: fables such as Nitikatha, histories, geographies, school dictionaries, and Rammohan Roy's Gaudiya Byakaran, which he wrote at the Society's request.
In 1862 it merged with the Vernacular Literature Society, and school dictionaries still carried its name in the 1870s.
The house itself is gone. Ask the desk, and we will look for its books in reprint or second-hand.
