W B Hockley
William Browne Hockley, 9 November 1792-22 August 1860, attended Haileybury from January 1812, and proceeded to Bombay in 1813 as a member of the Bombay Civil Service.
He was dismissed from his judgeship in September 1821, tried at Bombay in June 1823 and acquitted. He was finally dismissed with a pension in March 1824. On returning to England, he wrote two books, in 1826 and 1827.
Pandurang Hari, or Memoirs of a Hindoo (original spelling: Pandurang Hàrì) was published in 1826. The hero was Pandurang, a Maharatta adventurer. A c 1872 reprint included an Introduction by Sir H Bartle E Frere which included the words:
- ”It possesses merits of a very rare kind, as a series of photographic pictures from the past generation of a great Indian nation…Pandurang’s descriptions are remarkably faithful sketches of the time when the story was laid”.
Tales of the Zenana or, A Nuwab's Leisure Hours , originally published 1827, contains a number of tales, considered by some to equal many in the Arabian Nights.
Tales of the Zenana was reprinted 1874 with a biographical introduction.
These two books were considered to "... rank along with Meadows Taylor's as the best stories of Hindustan in English literature". [1]
Historical books online
- Pandurang Hari, or Memoirs of a Hindoo by W B (William Browne) Hockley published 1826. (Original spelling: Pandurang Hàrì) Archive.org
- Volume I. Volume II, Volume III
- 1891 reprint, of a c 1872 reprint with an Introductory Preface by Sir H Bartle E Frere
- Tales of the Zenana or, A Nuwab's Leisure Hours by W B Hockley. 1874 reprint edition, with a biographical introduction, originally published 1827. Archive.org