antiquarian bookseller - Peter Harrington

Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller
88
ENCHANTING FEATURES OF
INDIA
164.FORREST, Lieutenant-
Colonel Charles Ramus.
A Picturesque Tour along the
Rivers Ganges and Jumna, in India:
consisting of twenty-four highly
finished and coloured views, a
map, and vignettes, from original
drawings made on the spot;
with illustrations, historical and
descriptive.
London: by R. Ackermann, 1824 [25201] £7500
4to. Contemporary burgundy half morocco, matching
morocco-grain cloth sides, neatly rebacked to style with
gilt titles, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. Ownership
inscription dated 1881 on title. With folding engraved map of
the Ganges and Jumna, title page and end leaf each with a
hand coloured aquatint vignette, together with 24 fine hand
coloured aquatint plates by Hunt or Sutherland after Forrest.
Plates bound together at the front of the book, avoiding any
of offsetting from the text which often mars this book; the
images bright and fresh, an excellent copy.
FIRST EDITION of one of the finest colour plate books
on India. “The illustrations are clear and bright, finely
engraved, frequently printed in two colours, and well
finished by hand … they are a brave attempt to express
what the author in the glittering and oriental peroration to
his preface describes as ‘the enchanting features of India,
eternally glowing in the brilliant glory of the resplendent
Asiatic sun’” (Martin Hardie, English Coloured Books, pp.
109–10).
Abbey Travel 441; Tooley 227.
165.FORSYTH, Sir Douglas.
Autobiography and Reminiscences
of Sir Douglas Forsyth, C.B.,
K.C.S.I., F.R.G.S. Edited by his
Daughter.
London, Richard Bentley and Son, 1887 [37763] £550
8vo. Engraved portrait frontispiece with facsimile signature,
folding coloured map. Frontispiece lightly foxed, some mild
browning, but overall a very good copy in the publisher’s blue
cloth, gilt, a little rubbed and mottled, spine lined.
FIRST EDITION of this attractive and uncommon account
of the Great Game. Forsyth was Deputy Commissioner at
Ambala during the outbreak of the Mutiny and quickly
secured a supply of grain and transport for the Delhi
Relief Force. He proudly recounts how he was one of the
first officers to execute a rebel, and after the relief of Delhi
he was appointed as one of the special commissioners
to hunt down escaping insurgents, “A job he relished”
(ODNB) and for which he was created CB. He undertook
a number of missions into Central Asia, in 1867 travelling
to Ladakh to firm up trade relations, and in 1869 visited
St. Petersburg and obtained an agreement with the
Russians on the extent of the Amir of Kabul’s territory.
A failed mission to Yarkand in 1870 was followed by
his misjudged intervention in the rising of the Kukas,
a millenarian Sikh sect, in Maler Kotla. On arrival he
approved the resident officer’s decision to blow nearly
fifty Kukas from the cannon’s mouth and compounded
this by sentencing the remaining miscreants to more of
the same. Demotion to a relative backwater followed.
Forsyth’s career was salvaged by the incoming Viceroy, Lord
Northbrook, who in 1872 appointed him plenipotentiary
to Yarkand. The second expedition met with great success,
establishing excellent commercial relations with the
Amir and producing a wealth of geographical, botanical
and ethnographical information on the region. On his
return Forsyth was made KCSI and elected FRGS. In view
of Russia’s conquest of Khiva earlier in the year, Forsyth’s
mission was of considerable significance in the playing
out of the Great Game. He may have overstated his case,
but the “belief that Russia was the rising power, that she
is destined to advance still further, that England is afraid of
her, and will do nothing to oppose her progress” (Forsyth’s
Secret Despatches, quoted in Huttenback, “The Great Game
in the Pamirs”, Modern Asian Studies IX, 1) clearly needed
some corrective
166.FOUCHER, A.
L’Art Gréco-Bouddhique du
Gandhâra Étude sur les Origines
de l’Influence Classique dans
l’Art Bouddhique de l’Inde et de
l’Extrême-Orient.
Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, Ernest Leroux, Éditeur; Hanoi, École Française
d’Extrême-Orient, 1905–51 [39947] SOLD
2 volumes, large 8vo (275 × 180 mm). Later green buckram
with leather labels to the spines, original upper wraps bound
in at the end. Vol. I with photogravure frontispiece, folding
map at the rear and numerous illustrations to the text, some
full-page, vol. II with photogravure frontispiece and 4 similar
plates, profusely illustrated as Volume I. Some browning,
largely light and marginal, cloth a little rubbed, else very
good.
FIRST EDITION.
Transactions
of the Court
of Delhi
167.FRANCKLIN, W.
The History of the Reign of Shah-
Aulum, the Present Emperor of
Hindustaun. The Transactions
of the Court of Delhi, and the
Neighbouring States, during
a Period of Thirty-Six Years:
interspersed with Geographical
and Topographical Observations
on Several of the Principal Cities of
Hindostaun …
London, Printed for the Author, 1798 [40094] £500
4to (270 × 219mm) Modern French Havana half morocco on
marbled boards. Folding map frontispiece and 4 engraved
portrait plates, Shah Aulum, Mirza Nujuff Khan Zulficar al Dowlah,
Mujud al Dowlah, and Madhajee Sindiah. Browning throughout,
quite heavy off-setting from the plates, else very good.
FIRST EDITION. Francklin joined the army of the HEIC as
a cadet at the age of 19 and served with the 19th Bengal
Catalogue 57: Travel Section 4: Asia including Russia
Native Infantry until 1815 when he had risen to lieutenantcolonel
of both his regiment and the army. “ Francklin also
enjoyed considerable reputation as an oriental scholar. In
1786 he made a tour of Persia, in the course of which he
lived at Shiraz for eight months as the close friend of a
Persian family, and was thus able to write a fuller account
of Persian customs than had before appeared … His
publications also include a compilation of the memoirs of
George Thomas (1756–1802), the military adventurer in
India; translations from Persian; archaeological remarks
on the plain of Troy, seeking to corroborate the existence
of an ancient city there; historical, political, geographic,
economic, and religious essays on parts of India” (ODNB).
168.FRASER, James Baillie.
Journal of a Tour through part of
the Snowy Range of The Himala
Mountains, and to the sources of the
Rivers Jumna and Ganges.
London: for Rodwell and Martin, 1820 [18914] £1800
Large 4to. Modern blue morocco, spine with gilt devices
in compartments, covers with double gilt rules, marbled
endpapers, sprinkled edges. Large folding map. Ex-Newcastle
Public Library copy with accession marks on verso of title and
small faint inkstamps occasionally throughout. Some light
foxing, but generally fresh and clean throughout, a good copy.
FIRST EDITION. Fraser came as a merchant to Calcutta in
1813 and remained in India until 1820. In 1815 he spent
some time with his brother William, a political agent to
General Martindale, in the Himalayan region. In June 1815
Fraser penetrated almost to the source of the Ganges,
reaching the shrine of the Mother Goddess, Ganga Mai,
at Gangotri. Thinking that this marked the source, he
made no further effort to explore and returned to the
plains with material for this very popular book. Rodwell
and Martin also published a folio of coloured aquatints of
Fraser’s Himalayan sketches the same year, but the two
are separate publications.
Howgego F24; see Abbey Travel 498.
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