author
Montague Massey
A longtime resident of colonial Calcutta, this memoirist looks back across decades of change in the city with the eye of someone who knew its people, institutions, and daily life firsthand. His writing offers a personal, old-world tour of British-era Calcutta rather than a formal history.
1 Audiobook
Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century
by Montague Massey
About the author
Published in 1918, Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century is the one work of Montague Massey that is readily traceable in major public-domain and library records. In it, he presents his memories of Calcutta over many decades, describing social life, public buildings, clubs, race meetings, storms, and the changing character of the city.
From the book itself, it is clear that Massey had known Calcutta since an earlier period and wrote as an eyewitness to the world of British India. The volume was issued for the benefit of the Red Cross Fund and dedicated to Lady Carmichael, which places it firmly in the context of the First World War era as well as the late-colonial city he remembered.
Very little dependable biographical information about Massey seems to survive in the easily accessible sources consulted here, so it is safest to remember him chiefly as a memoirist of old Calcutta. For listeners interested in personal recollection, urban history, and the texture of everyday life in the city, his book remains an engaging window into a vanished time.