By Edwardes Herbert B.

Publication date 1851

First edition, decidedly uncommon. Edwardes' low-key style is perhaps at odds with his reputation as a brilliant soldier-diplomat, whose willingness to act on his own initiative, despite his lack of formal military training, was instrumental in defeating the dangerous insurrection at Multan. His account include the establishment of a British administrative presence at Bunnu while he was a young army lieutenant seconded to the civil administration, "a tour of the province of Multan as a Land Revenue Officer, and as the commander of the troops used to crush the Sikh revolt at Multan. Edwardes's mixture of letters, reports, diary entries and narrative forms a gripping account nearly epic in enormity of the accomplishments it records" (Riddick). A second edition was issued in the same year. Bruce 2221; Riddick 104. 2 volumes, octavo. Publisher's original red combed cloth with central pictorial decorations blocked in gilt and decorative borders in blind, titles in gilt on spines, dark blue endpapers with Remnant & Edmonds binder's ticket to rear pastedown of vol. 1. Vol. I: lithographic portrait frontispiece and 2 further plates of views, a folding engraved panorama, a folding plan, a folding map coloured in outline of the Trans-Indus Frontier of the Punjab and the Sikh Province of Mooltan inside rear pocket as issued, and 24 pp. of publisher's advertisements; vol. II: chromolithographic double portrait frontispiece heightened in gilt and 2 similar plates, a folding plan of the Fort of Mooltan, and a folding facsimile. Armorial bookplates of Evelyn J. Shirley of Eatington Park, presumably Evelyn John Shirley M. P. (1788-1856), Sheriff of Warwickshire 1813-14, and Conservative Member for County Monaghan.