Somewhere in the foothills of the Himalayas, a sixty-two-year-old English painter falls off his sketching stool. Overweight, asthmatic and prone to attacks of epilepsy, Edward Lear is nevertheless on a mission – to paint the mighty Kanchenjunga for his patron, the Viceroy of India.
Lear is an oddity, an outsider, simultaneously fascinated and repelled by the world the British have built in India. Even as he battles the fatigue of travelling on pony carts, jampans and trains, Lear reflects on those who run the vast machinery of the Empire – administrators and missionaries, kitmutgars and kamsamahs.
Duelling pompous British officers with his wry humour, Lear turns his ear to the polyphony of local languages to compose nonsense poetry with a uniquely Indian ?avour. Woven into this vivid account are ?ashes from Lear's own life – deep-seated fears stemming from an unhappy childhood and the memory of unful?lled adult relationships.
Inspired by the journals of this celebrated artist and poet, Anindyo Roy brings to life Lear's little-known Indian sojourns. In lyrical prose, and occasional verse, The Viceroy's Artist paints a picture of an exceptional man who inspires by his unhindered imagination, curiosity and compassion for the world.
Review
The Viceroy's Artist is story at a human scale: a man, caught between his past and the arc of a sweeping historical drama unfolding around him. Roy's storytelling carries the reader with Lear in a quietly thrilling undertow, far from the familiar shores of colonial history as we think we know them. – Tilar J. Mazzeo, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot
Edward Lear [...] is the most engaging and unusual of Victorian literary and artistic travellers and Anindyo Roy brings him to life with delicate detail... This lovely book has captured with compelling intimacy not only the singular character of Lear himself but the nineteenth-century moment in which he lived. – Lucy Lethbridge prize-winning author of Who Was Ada Lovelace?
Anindyo Roy's richly visual novel [...] marvellously enables us to follow Edward Lear's experience of India... Visual beauty and verbal comedy alternate with the artist's memories of personal sorrows, perception of historic cruelties and liking for a good meal. – Janet Montefiore, editor of the Kipling Journal
A very clever fictionalised re-creation of Lear's own meticulous record of his travels on the subcontinent [...] all in a colourful style which Lear himself would surely have approved. – Michael Montgomery, author of Lear in Italy and The Owl and the Pussy Cats: Lear in Love
In this entertaining and touching story, Anindyo Roy has captured the voice and
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