Niyogi Books published Harry Hobbs of Kolkata and Other Forgotten Lives by Devasis Chattopadhyay, their most recent book under the Paper Missile imprint.

The book explores the social fabric of 19th-century Kolkata by focusing on mufti expatriates who are underappreciated in mainstream historical recognition—a throwback to the then-current life of the populace under strict colonial rules—and attempts to humanize the historical narrative of the complex metropolis of Calcutta through the lens of distinctive European personalities and their contributions.

The author of the book, Devasis Chattopadhyay, said, “Since 2020, when I left the corporate world and the universe placed me in solitary prison. It is then I have worked alone on my most recent novel. To get through the epidemic, I needed a reason. The book’s concept also began to take shape since I have always enjoyed listening to stories, and my father told me a lot of tales about Kolkata. My passion for these kinds of tales and Kolkata’s history in the 19th century persisted.
I wrote about them when I first began to contribute stories and opinion pieces to Indian media. These narratives weren’t picked at random. Although the characters in my stories have made noteworthy contributions to Kolkata, her history, and culture, these are stories that are mainly unknown to scholars and historians”.

Harry Hobbs of Kolkata and Other Forgotten Lives is an intriguing compilation of nine meticulously chosen accounts about the city throughout the 1800s. They’re hard to come by. Some were extracted from private family memoirs, several were recovered from the pages of ancient newspapers, and some were found inside dusty files in official archives. They provide us with little-known stories about Kolkata and the intriguing legends that surround it.

Along with an opera impresario, an entertainment, a piano tuner, a mercenary, a hotelier, a writer, a publisher, a lawyer, and a real-life police detective-turned-crime writer, the main characters are middle- to junior civil or military officials and puisne judges.

The price of the 316-page paperback book is Rs 595.

Priyanka Dutta