The Wonders of the Jungle. by GHOSH, Prince Sarath - 1915

New York: D. C. Heath and Co., 1915. First edition. Small octavo. 190 pp. including frontispiece and 18 full page monochrome illustrations. Publisher's green cloth with a dense illustration of life in the jungle in gilt and brown on the front, gilt spine lettering. A youngster by the name of John has affixed his naive signature to the front blank. Some minor wear to extremities. else a handsome, clean and tight copy.Prince A. Sarath Kumar Ghosh (Prince Sarath Ghosh), claimed to have been born in 1885 in India. He arrived in San Francisco on February 23, 1912 aboard the liner Siberia. This was a decade after Swami Vivekananda had made two tours of America, lecturing on Indian religion and society. He claimed to be a prince of the royal family of Ghosphara, and told everyone that he was making a trip to investigate the social, economic and religious conditions in the United States of America. At various times, he claimed to be the Maharajah of Patiala, head of the Sikhs, a nephew of the maharajah of Ghoshpara, and descendant of the royal line of Kannauj. Whoever he was, he quickly started making money by joining the lecture circuit and went across the States, giving lectures on various topics about India. He seems to have come prepared for this, for his shows included lantern slides of various temples, places and Indian conditions, and he would dress in various different Indian garb. In addition to the lecture circuit he sold stories to magazines and published a few children's books. He died in 1920 in the great Spanish Flu Epidemic.