[DEANE, Ann]. A Tour through the Upper Provinces of Hindostan; comprising a Period between the Years 1804 and 1814: With Remarks and authentic Anecdotes. To which is annexed a Guide up the River Ganges. London, Rivington, [1823].
8vo. Publisher's drab boards, spine renewed and with a few restorations; pp. 8 (publisher's catalogue, dated 1849), xii, 291, folding engraved map; a little spotted, map more so, a good copy of a rare book: provenance: pencil notes on the author and her family on the front-free endpaper, loosely inserted hand-written letter from Edgar Thurston, scholar on the anthropology and ethnology of India, to Rosamund Thompson (née Deane), a relative of the author; her copy with her name at head of title.
First edition, anonymously published. 'Ann Deane was the eldest daughter of John Deane, Esq., of Hartley Court, Berkshire, a magistrate and receiver for the county, and Sarah Ann Deane (d. 1818). In 1786, she married her cousin Capt. Charles Meredith Deane (1762-1815), of the 24th Light Dragoons, with whom she had two sons, Charles Deane (1791-1853) and the Reverend John Bathurst Deane (1797-1887), born at the Cape of Good Hope. While her son Charles remained in England, the rest of the family sailed to India in 1799, where her husband served in the Mahratta wars' (University of Wolverhampton, British Travel Writing, online). Precisely observed and written without much prejudice this is a very detailed travelogue covering the route from Kolkata to Delhi through remote villages and almost untouched nature on both sides of the Ganges, encountering Indian society and customs with unblinkered eyes. - A collector and good customer of ours, who has a copy of this rare book and read it commented 'an excellent read'.
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