[Rarebooks] fa: MEMOIR ON THE EUPHRATES ROUTE TO INDIA 1857 - Sir W. P. Andrew (INSCRIBED to Sir Bartle Frere)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 5. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/ychnzkto

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

W. P. Andrew: Memoir on the Euphrates Valley Route to India; with Official Correspondence and Maps. London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1857. First edition. Tall 8vo (22 cm) bound in full morocco with the spine, covers and turn-ins elaborately tooled in gilt, all page edges gilt; xvi, 267, [1], 7, [1] pp.; with two folding colored maps.

Presentation copy, INSCRIBED on the front free-endpaper: "Bartle Frere Esq. With the best wishes of his friend The Author." The author, Sir William Patrick Andrew (ca. 1807-1887), the founder of the Scinde, Punjab, and Delhi Railway Company, "took an early and prominent part in promoting railway and telegraphic communication with India," writing several books on the subject. The present work describes the "great scheme of Sir William Andrew's life," the Euphrates Valley Railway. "He never ceased, from 1856 to the day of his death, to urge the advantage of the Euphrates Valley line as an alternative to that of the Red Sea… and though he failed in recommending this project" (possibly due in part to the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny in the year he first presented it to the public), "the impetus he gave to railway communication in India may be estimated from the fact that in 1848, before a mile of railway was open, the external trade of India was £25,000,000; in 1883, with 10,000 miles of railway the external trade was £147,837,920" (The Engineer, obituary, March 18, 1887). The book includes prospectuses for the Euphrates Valley Railway Company, Ltd. and the European and Indian Junction Telegraph Company, Ltd., as well as the report of the Scinde Railway Company. The recipient of the book, Sir Bartle Frere (1815-1884), was a long-serving colonial administrator in India and chief commissioner of Sindh during the Indian Mutiny. He was knighted for his actions there. Later, as the controversial governor of the Cape Colony in South Africa, he provoked the Zulu War (1878-79) and was recalled shortly thereafter.

From the Masonic library of the Wisconsin Consistory (Scottish Rite) with its fairly discreet library marks: bookplate, shelf label on the spine foot and pocket on rear paste-down; no markings to the text or maps. The morocco binding shows bumping to the corners, some scuffing and sunning to the spine and edges; a few leaves with a touch of dust-soiling to the top edges, else the text is very clean and tight; the fine, large folding maps are exceptionally bright and fresh, each with a short closed tear to the margin at the gutter fold. A handsome copy with a nice Indian association.