Lot 170
Wilson, Horace Hayman
A Dictionary, Sanscrit and English
Auction: India in Ink: The Library of Dr Raj Krishna | 01 October 2026 from 10am | Lots 79 to 208
Description
Translated, Amended and Enlarged, from an Original Compilation prepared by Learned Natives for the College of Fort William. Calcutta: printed by Philip Pereira, at the Hindoostanee Press, 1819. First edition, 4to in half-sheets (30 x 22.6cm), contemporary marbled boards, rebacked, iv l 1061 pp., text in English and Sanskrit (Devanagari types), printed in double column, ink marginalia to pp. 513 and 759, tips worn, occasional spotting, title-page partly detached, small paper-flaw to Q1 verso to no loss of text, signatures 2X-3B with worming to upper margins just touching the top line of text in a few leaves, 5M-5O damp-stained, damp-staining to fore corners from signature 8M to end of volume (gradually extending), 2 holes in text in final 3 leaves
Provenance
INDIA IN INK: THE LIBRARY OF DR RAJ KRISHNA
Footnote
The first printed dictionary of Sanskrit, very rare, with no other copies traced in auction records, and only a handful of the second edition of 1832. Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) was one of the most important orientalists of the 19th century, noted for his advocacy of traditional Indian scholarship. He was the first professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, and ‘carefully and effectively crafted three major institutions: the Asiatic Society of Bengal, the East India Company Library, and the Royal Asiatic Society’ (ODNB).