WHITE, GEORGE FRANCIS; EMMA ROBERTS
VIEWS IN INDIA: CHIEFLY AMONG THE HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS
First EditionYear: 1838
Size: 34.4 x 26 cm (13.5 x 10.2 inches)
Published by: Fisher, Son and Co. and edited by Emma Roberts
No. of Illustrations: 35 Steel Engraved Plates
Small folio, PP 94, Original full Moroccan leather with decoration and fine tooling in gilt and blind on both covers, Title in gilt on spine. Engraved title, frontis. (after JMW Turner) & 35 further plates.
Following her sister to India in 1828, Roberts wrote: 'There cannot be a more wretched situation than that of a young woman in India who has been induced to follow the fortunes of her married sister under the delusive expectation that she will exchange the privations attached to limited means in England for the far-famed luxuries of the East'. (Roberts, Scenes and Characteristics, 1.33-4). Sadly her sister died in 1830, whereupon Roberts turned her experience into subject of a series of successful books, including a volume of poetry, 'Oriental Scenes' in 1830, (which she claimed to be the first written by a British woman in India). "The objectivity gained from what she perceived to be her peripheral role as a spinster in British society in India was turned to account in her descriptions of both the British and Indians, for whom she showed sympathy. Many of her articles which appeared in the 'Asiatic Journal' from 1832 were published as 'Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan' (1835). The book was widely praised, the 'Calcutta Literary Gazette' noting, 'there is a vivacity, a delicacy, and a truth in her light sketches of all that lay immediately before her, that have never been surpassed in any book of travels that is at this moment present to our memory" (Rosemary Cargill Raza for DNB).
Provenance : Collection of a Gentleman
Very Good Condition
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