Martin, R. Montgomery: The Indian Empire: Its History, Topography, Government, Finance, Commerce, and Staple Products With A Full Account Of The Mutiny of the Native Troops, and an Exposition of the Social and Religious State of One Hundred Million Subjects of the Crown of England. Illustrated with Maps, Portraits, Views, etc. from Original Sketches, 8 Volumes.

Auflage

London, The London Printing and Publishing Company, o. J. (um 1858).

Comprehensive, richly illustrated work by Irish writer, colonial official and explorer Robert Montgomery Martin (1801-1868) on the history of India and the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Includes 3 engraved titel pages, 120 steel-engraved illustrations and two double-page maps. From an early age, Martin joined several expeditions that took him to Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, the south-east coast of Africa and Madagascar, among others. Around 1838 he began to deal intensively with questions of the British colonial empire. The result of these studies was his work "Statistics of the Colonies of the British Empire", published in 1839. His special interest was in India, where he had already lived for a year in 1828. His present work "The Indian Empire" contains a complete history of India (volumes 1 - 5, 582 p.), which is divided into 5 chapters: Chapter I: Early history, mythological and traditional - Persian and other invasions - Greek expedition and conquers of Alexander - plundering incursions of Mahmood the Ghuznivede - Mohammedan conquests, dominion and downfall - Rise and progress of British power and supremacy. Chapter II: Topography - mountains and passes - Rivers - Plateaux - Provinces and chief towns - climate and diseases - geology - soil - mineralogy. Chapter III: Population - numbers density to area - proportion of Hindoos to Mohammedans - varieties of race - diverse languages - aborigines - slavery - past and present condition of the people. Chapter IV: Religion - Christian missions - education - the press - and crime. Chapter V: Civil government - judical administration - military power - and protected states and pensionaries. The second large part of the work entitled "History of the Mutiny of the Sepoy Troops" is dedicated to the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (Vol. 5: pp. 1 - 72; vol. 6: pp. 73 - 192; vol. 7 : pp. 193 – 328; vol. 8: pp. 329 – 504). Finally, a third part deals with the description of the illustrations contained in the work ("Description of the Engravings", vol. 5: p. 1 - 64; vol. 6: p. 65 - 136; vol. 7: p. 137 - 192).

Exemplar

Vollständiges Werk in 8 Bänden. Original-Ganzleinenbände im Format 29 x 20 cm mit goldgeprägten Rückentiteln sowie reichen Goldprägungen auf Buchrücken und Vorderdeckel; beide Deckel außerdem mit reichen floralen Blindprägungen. Complete work in 8 volumes. Original full-cloth volumes in the format 29 x 20 cm with gold embossed spine titles and rich gold embossing on the spine and front cover; both covers also with rich floral blind embossing.

Spine somewhat faded; bindings slightly rubbed, one back cover slightly stained; pages partially slightly stained. Overall a very good copy of this fascinating, richly illustrated work on history and colonial history of the Indian Empire. More photos on the website of the antiquarian bookstore (please quote the article number on the supply side in the search box)