Chāpā-Puthis: Some Print-House Practices in Mid-nineteenth Century Calcutta

Abstract

Abstract From the 1840s, one of the most visible print genres in the popular ‘Battala’ book trade in Calcutta was the so-called chāpā puthis. Such works, though printed, adhered faithfully to the distinctive layout and typography of the Islamic manuscript tradition which had been current for several centuries in Bengal. They were also among the most lucrative of literary properties, and when the passage of Act XX of 1847 gave copyright protection to books printed in British India., the printers who seized upon the act with the greatest alacrity were those of “chāpā puthis.” The printers of such puthis used the title-page to provide copious metadata, in the process laying bare the often invisible ecology of labor of the print-house. This article will provide a preliminary account of the printing and publishing history of the genre, with its focus on print-house practices, and in particular, the figure of the compositor.