ABAA-IPLA-PBFA

"Curry & Rice" on Forty Plates; or, The Ingredients of Social Life at "Our Station" in India.
ATKINSON, Captain George Francklin.

London: Printed & Published by Day & Son, Lithographers to the Queen, [1858]. Large 4to, original embossed terra-cotta cloth, backstrip & front cover elaborately lettered and pictorially decorated in gilt, gilt edges [82] pp. + 40 tinted lithographic plates, including extra pictorial title-page, each with guard sheet. A few plates with one margin trimmed and marginal soiling and creasing, suggesting removal and reinsertion; intermittent foxing; overall a good, sound copy of a book that is hard to find in its celebrated ornate original binding. First Edition, identifiable by the “J.B. Day” on the title-page and at the foot of the backstrip, later printings stating “Day and Son”. The author-illustrator was a captain in the Bengal Engineers and also published an account of his activities during the Indian Mutiny, as well as a volume of sketches of travel in northern Europe. The satirical plates, each with an accompanying two-page text, depict life at a British colonial station in India, with heavy emphasis on social and sporting activities, with several images of pompous dignitaries and of native life. The sporting plates include horse-racing, tiger-shooting, and pig-sticking. This work has gone through several editions down the years, most recently in 1999. Abbey, Travel (illustrating the binding). Hiler, p. 52. Schwedt, I, p. 47. (Item ID: 5861)

$850.00