[Rarebooks] fa: HISTORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN INDIA - Edward Thornton - 6 vols./Maps 1841-45

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 17. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/w5lhoul

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Edward Thornton: The History of the British Empire in India. London: Wm. Allen and Co., 1841-45. First edition. Six volumes, 8vo (22 cm), in early/period half calf and marbled boards, gilt-lettered spine labels; 574, 576, 575, 586, 734, 549 pp; with 6 engraved folding maps, outlined in color, bound in at the rear of vol. VI.

Bindings with modest rubbing, occasional bumping and wear to the extremities; some browning and spotting to the first and last few leaves (most noticeable in vol. I), occasional scattered spots and light foxing elsewhere, toning to the page edges, offsetting to the maps, else quite clean and sound, firmly bound. Engraved armorial bookplates of F. N. Landon. As a historian of the Raj, Edward Parry Thornton (1811-1893) knew whereof he wrote: a long-time civil servant in the East India Company, he was appointed commissioner at Rawalpindi in the Punjab in 1849, where "he distinguished himself by his promptitude and courage in arresting Nadir Khan, a discontented son of the raja of Mandla, who was endeavouring to promote a rising of the hill tribes. He received a bullet wound in the throat while executing his perilous mission, but had the satisfaction of preventing the rising. In 1857, at the time of the Mutiny,... the intelligence reached Lady Lawrence at Murri that the tribes in the lower Hazarah country contemplated revolt. She communicated the intelligence to Thornton, who succeeded in arresting the leaders of the conspiracy within a few hours, and by this prompt action prevented any attempt at rebellion... During a furlough in England between 1842 and 1845 he completed two works of... importance. One of these, 'History of the British Empire in India,' was written in a lively and interesting manner, and on the whole in an impartial spirit, though sometimes with a bias in favour of the company. A second edition in one volume appeared in 1858" (DNB).