Lot 103
Kennedy, Richard Hartley
Narrative of the Campaign of the Army of the Indus in Sindh and Kaubool, in 1838-9
Auction: India in Ink: The Library of Dr Raj Krishna | 01 October 2026 from 10am | Lots 79 to 208
Description
London: Richard Bentley, 1840. First edition, 2 volumes, large 12mo (18.6 x 11.5cm), contemporary tan half calf, gilt spines, comb-marbled sides and edges, x 291, vii [3] 307 pp., 5 tinted lithographic plates including frontispieces, spines and extremities rubbed, later ownership inscription to initial blank of volume 1 and reverse of frontispiece in volume 2, plates variably offset and with shallow blue tide-marks along edges probably from bleeding of edge-dye, spotting to endpapers, frontispieces and title-pages, volume 2 M7-8 jaggedly trimmed in fore margins not affecting text [Abbey Travel 462]
Provenance
INDIA IN INK: THE LIBRARY OF DR RAJ KRISHNA
James Hans Hamilton (engraved armorial bookplates, annotated ‘MP’).
Footnote
An interesting and circumspect eyewitness account of the First Anglo-Afghan War by the chief medical officer of the Bombay division of the Army of the Indus. The author's preface implies a sceptical view of British policy in Afghanistan, the Sikh Empire, and Sindh: ‘the propriety of such interference at Kaubool … of the policy throughout pursued towards Runjet Sing, and the system so long persevered in and so concluded in Sind, are parts of a great whole, which must soon be developed in all its wisdom or the reverse … and the cost, as proportioned to the benefit, supposing it to be a benefit, must soon be counted'.