Lot 101
Tod, James
Travels in Western India
Auction: India in Ink: The Library of Dr Raj Krishna | 01 October 2026 from 10am | Lots 79 to 208
Description
embracing a Visit to the Sacred Mounts of the Jains, and the most Celebrated Shrines of Hindu Faith. London: Wm. H. Allen and Co., 1839. First edition, 4to (30.2 x 23.5cm), contemporary half calf, lx 518 [2] pp., 9 plates (one lithographic, the rest engraved) by W.F. Sterling after F. Mackenzie from original sketches by Colonel Hunter Blair, vignettes, lacking half-title, front endpaper and frontispiece detached, offsetting from plates to text, spine leather split with joint of upper board cracking, boards and corner tips worn, remains of a linen repair to the corner tips, headband for tail of spine worn, additional later endpapers yellowed and torn
Provenance
INDIA IN INK: THE LIBRARY OF DR RAJ KRISHNA
Bookplate on front pastedown of American collectors Walter and Dorothy Donnelly, Walter (1900-1981) was editor of the University of Michigan Press when he retired in 1970; Dorothy (1903-1994) was an award-winning poet.
Footnote
Uncommon. James Tod (1782-1835) was an East India Company army and political officer who, in 1818, 'after the chiefs of Rajputana had accepted the protective alliance offered to them ... was appointed by the governor-general political agent in the western Rajput states, and was so successful in his efforts to restore peace and confidence that within less than a year some 300 deserted towns and villages were repeopled, trade revived, and, in spite of the abolition of transit duties and the reduction of frontier customs, the state revenue had reached an unprecedented amount. During the next five years Tod earned the respect of the chiefs and people, and was able to rescue more than one princely family, including that of the ranas of Udaipur, from the destitution to which they had been reduced by Maratha raiders' (ODNB). The present account appeared posthumously.