Burning bright

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night. Generations of English students have struggled with William Blake’s world-famous poem. However, Blake’s tyger is only one of many tigers that roam the dense forests of English literature: every child is familiar with the terrifying Shere Khan from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books, and millions of readers have enjoyed the adventures of an Indian boy who ended up with a Bengal tiger in a lifeboat in Yann Martel’s bestseller Life of Pi. This book covers 200 years of Anglophone tiger literature and provides an in-depth analysis of its key works. Moreover, the tiger is put in a wider context by giving a profound survey of the diverse roles that this fascinating animal has been playing in the cultures, myths and beliefs of many civilisations for centuries.