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MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE (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° (278 x 210mm). Hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece and 13 aquatint plates, all but one hand-coloured, 2 engraved maps, hand-coloured in outline, including one large folding linen-backed map laid-in and held by a silk thread, 3-line errata. (Occasional light scattered spotting and soiling.) Contemporary tree calf, spine richly gilt in compartments, sides with rules and corner fleurons in gilt, marbled edges (light rubbing).
FIRST EDITION, with fine hand-coloured aquatint plates. 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 fruitful founder and exponent'; An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul 'continued to inform British policy on the north-western frontier until the 1840s' (DNB). Abbey Travel 504; Tooley 209.
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° (278 x 210mm). Hand-coloured aquatint frontispiece and 13 aquatint plates, all but one hand-coloured, 2 engraved maps, hand-coloured in outline, including one large folding linen-backed map laid-in and held by a silk thread, 3-line errata. (Occasional light scattered spotting and soiling.) Contemporary tree calf, spine richly gilt in compartments, sides with rules and corner fleurons in gilt, marbled edges (light rubbing).
FIRST EDITION, with fine hand-coloured aquatint plates. 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 fruitful founder and exponent'; An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul 'continued to inform British policy on the north-western frontier until the 1840s' (DNB). Abbey Travel 504; Tooley 209.
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