Details
ELPHINSTONE, Mountstuart (1779-1859). An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and its dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India. London: A. Strahan for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown and J. Murray, 1815. 4 (288 x 220mm). 14 aquatint plates, all but one hand-coloured, 2 engraved maps, hand-coloured in outline (one folding in segments mounted on linen, in pocket at end), 3-line errata. (Numerous 19th-century ink stamps to text and 12 of the plates.) Modern half cloth. Provenance: Peabody Library, Peabody, Mass. (ink stamps, most dated 1852).
FIRST EDITION with fine plates; the folding map is dated 1818 and appears to be a separately-issued version of the map more usually found bound into copies of this work. Elphinstone was appointed ambassador to the Afghan court of Cabul in the middle of 1808. Although unsuccessful as an envoy, he came away "stored with information, and already nursing that germ of frontier policy of which he was afterwards to be the frutiful founder and exponent" (DNB). Abbey Travel 504; Tooley 209.
FIRST EDITION with fine plates; the folding map is dated 1818 and appears to be a separately-issued version of the map more usually found bound into copies of this work. Elphinstone was appointed ambassador to the Afghan court of Cabul in the middle of 1808. Although unsuccessful as an envoy, he came away "stored with information, and already nursing that germ of frontier policy of which he was afterwards to be the frutiful founder and exponent" (DNB). Abbey Travel 504; Tooley 209.