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Conceived and composed over five years, Wild Fire brings the splendour and diversity of Indias animal kingdom to glorious and vivid life and brings together, for the very first time, the finest writing, photography and art on Indian animals over the past two thousand years.

Developed and edited by Valmik Thapar, one of our foremost wildlife experts, the book is divided into three sections. The first section, Thoughts from Elsewhere, written by Thapar, takes the reader on a quick tour of the countrys natural heritage in the twenty-first century. It provides an overview of mammalian distribution, the characteristics of individual species, the evolution of the countrys wildlife habitats, threats to the environment and much else besides. The second section, The Wildlife Chroniclescollects the finest accounts of Indias animals from the first century onwards. It has stories about the great predators-tigers, leopards, snow leopards, lions, golden cats and others, magnificent herbivores like the elephant, rhino, wild ox and the various species of deer and antelope, evocative accounts of some of the most striking animals in the country including monkeys, squirrels and other arboreal creatures, as well as reports of rare sightings of river dolphins, bats, shrews and other lesser-known members of the animal kingdom. Contributors to this section include travellers, hunters, writers, photographers and naturalists such as Pliny the Elder, Ibn Battuta, Babur, Akbar, Francois Bernier, Isabel Savory, Jim Corbett, George Schaller, Kenneth Anderson, M. Krishnan, E. R. C. Davidar, Peter Jackson and Ruskin Bond. The third section, Wild Fire, contains a selection of some of the finest photographs ever taken of Indias mammals.