Lot 36
Mirza I'tisam ud-Din (c.1730-c.1800)
Shigurf Namah i Velaet, or Excellent Intelligence concerning Europe
Auction: The Library of General Sir James Alexander | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 31 to 62
Description
being the Travels of Mirza Itesa Modeen, in Great Britain and France. Translated from the Original Persian Manuscript into Hindoostanee, with an English Version and Notes, by James Edward Alexander. London: for Parbury, Allen, and Co., 1827. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by James Edward Alexander to his father, ‘To Edward Alexander Esquire of Powis, from his affect[ionat]e son the Translator’, on an initial blank, 8vo in half-sheets (20.8 x 12.2cm), 2 parts in 1 volume, with English text at front and Urdu text from rear, xv 221, [2] 6 197 [1] pp., contemporary tan calf, hand-coloured lithographic frontispiece with tissue-guard, printer's colophon leaf at rear. Together with another copy of the first edition (contemporary dark green moiré cloth with leather spine-label, Alexander family ownership inscription to initial blank) (2)
Provenance
THE LIBRARY OF GENERAL SIR JAMES EDWARD ALEXANDER (1803-1885)
Footnote
I'tisam ud-Din, a munshi from Nadia in Bengal, was sent to England in 1766 by Mughal emperor Shah ‘Alam with the task of establishing direct diplomatic relations with George III in the wake of the victory of Robert Clive and the East India Company at the battle of Buxar, and the ensuing treaty of Allahabad. He has been identified as ’one of the first members of the educated Indian elite to visit Britain' (Franklin, Orientalist Jones, 2011, p. 63).