[Rarebooks] fa: THOMAS ROWLANDSON: THE GRAND MASTER or ADVENTURES OF QUI HI? IN HINDOSTAN - 1816

[ArCh]

Auction ending Sunday, October 9. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/5n827ram

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[William Combe; Thomas Rowlandson, illus.:] The Grand Master or, Adventures of Qui Hi? in Hindostan. A Hudibrastic Poem in Eight Cantos by Quiz. Illustrated with Engravings by Rowlandson. London: Printed by Thomas Tegg, 1816. First edition. Tall 8vo (22 cm) bound in later, but not recent, half morocco and marbled boards; marbled endpapers, page edges gilt; x + 252 pp.; with 27 hand-colored plates, including the folding frontispiece and engraved title-page, and one uncolored plate (complete), all with tissue guards. Tooley 413; Hardie p. 171.

A wicked satire aimed at the Marquis of Hastings, Governor General of Bengal, showing "the [low] public estimation of the East India Company, with its toleration of suttee for revenue purposes, and its total disregard otherwise of Hindu practices. The British missionary comes in for many cynical sneers both in text and in illustration" (Martin Hardie: English Coloured Books). Bound without the errata slip and cancel leaf, as is often the case. Binding with some damp-staining, rubbing to the joints, bottom fore-corners bumped; mild browning to the contents (a few text leaves slightly heavier), occasional scattered small spots, else clean and sound, firmly bound.