author
Robert Armitage Sterndale
1839–1902
A soldier-administrator with a naturalist’s eye, he wrote vivid books on Indian wildlife that later helped spark Rudyard Kipling’s imagination. His work blends field observation, storytelling, and a lifelong interest in the animals of British India.
1 Audiobook
Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon
by Robert Armitage Sterndale
About the author
Born on June 30, 1839, in Derbyshire, Robert Armitage Sterndale was a British naturalist, artist, writer, and colonial administrator. He went to India as a teenager and spent much of his career there in public service, while also building a reputation as a close observer of Indian wildlife.
Sterndale is best remembered for books such as Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon and Seonee; or, Camp Life on the Satpura Range. His writing drew on direct experience in the field and was admired for making natural history readable and lively. Sources about his life also note that his animal books were an influence on Rudyard Kipling.
Later in life, he served as governor of St. Helena. He died on October 3, 1902. Today he is mainly remembered as one of those nineteenth-century writer-naturalists whose work sits between science, travel writing, and adventure.