HEBER, Reginald, Bishop of Calcutta. Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824-1825. (With Notes from Ceylon,) An Account of a Journey to Madras and the Southern Provinces, 1826, and Letters Written in India ... First Edition. [Edited by Amelia Heber] London, John Murray, 1828.
4to. Contemporary brown calf, rebacked with new spine in the 20th-century and with new endpapers; pp. xlvii, 631; vi, [2], 515, 25 wood-engravings, 10 steel-engraved plates, with later hand-colouring; outline-coloured map at the end of volume one; binding a little worn in places, internally very clean and fresh.
First Edition, rarely seen with colour plates. Reginald Heber (1783-1826) was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823, and travelled widely through the subcontinent to minister to the far-flung protestant community: 'His most notable journey, of a length and difficulty unprecedented for a Church of England bishop, was the one which he undertook across northern India -- up the Gangetic plain, through the mountains of Kumaon and the deserts of Rajputana, and finally visiting Ceylon on his way back to Calcutta by sea. His journal was published as the Narrative of a journey [...] Its popularity was attested by the fact that five editions had been published by 1844, and its exceptional value as a description of India was recognized by contemporaries and by modern historians alike' (ODNB), and Lowndes considered the Narrative 'A highly valuable, interesting, and most delightful work'.
Brunet III, col. 72; Lowndes pp. 1030-1031; cf. Goonetileke 2202 (3rd ed., 1828).
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