Grindlay, Captain Robert Melville

2 volumes in one, folio (16 1/2 x 11 3/4 in.; 392 x 300 mm). Engraved title with hand-colored costume vignette, 36 hand-colored engraved plates, section-titles to parts II–VI,  vol. II with engraved title with vignette mounted on India paper, bound preceding the final part-title; occasional spotting to text and margins of plates. Modern three-quarter red morocco over marbled boards; spine in six compartments with raised bands tooled in gilt. 

Abbey, Travel 442; Colas 1334; cf. Tooley (1954) 239

FIRST EDITION. "Next to Daniell, the most attractive colour plate book on India" (Tooley). Grindlay was a self-taught amateur artist who went to India in 1803, aged 17. He served with the East India Company's military service from 1804 - 1820, throughout which, as noted in his introduction, "the various appointments which he successively held, afforded him peculiar advantages in collecting materials. ...The author pledges himself to the fidelity of the representations, and he has spared neither labour nor expense in the execution of the work."